ECCE EEMINA; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE WOMAN ZOE. 
 
 | 
 
 BY CUTLER PINE. 
 
 re&** 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 
 
 LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO., 
 MDCCCLXXV.
 
 Entered accordins to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 
 
 G. W. CARLETON & CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Jox F. Tuow ft Son, PRINTERS, 
 05-213 EAST i>TH ST., NEW YORK.
 
 PS 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 FAITH 7 
 
 PART II. 
 RETRIBUTION 52 
 
 PART III. 
 JUSTICE 72
 
 ECCE FEMINA. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 JHERE had never gone up to the rails 
 of a chancel for 'ordination a class of 
 candidates more highly valued by the 
 church than that which included on the list the 
 name of Edwin Clancy Bowen. They were 
 all men of high culture, of social standing, of 
 unimpeachable character. It was to them 
 that the bishop of a mammoth diocese had 
 alluded when he said that he wished he might 
 ordain a dozen more like them. Among these 
 shining lights the said Mr. Bowen was regarded
 
 8 FAITH. 
 
 as the most promising reinforcement to the 
 church's ministry in the eyes of all who knew 
 him, as well as by his special friends ; and 
 when the prelate addressed the hopeful band 
 of recent deacons, on whom he had just laid 
 his consecrating hands, there was more than 
 one in the crowded congregation who fancied 
 that his eye rested on the gentleman aforesaid 
 in a manner that conferred particular distinc 
 tion. 
 
 From the hour that he came down those 
 aisles a stoled and surpliced "priest," up to 
 the fifth year of his ministry, the Rev. Mr. 
 Bowen had gone on without a ripple. He was 
 a man of education, of fine appearance, of good 
 manners, of a very respectable family. His con 
 gregation was "strong." He had charge of 
 the chief flock in a city of wealthy people. 
 The church was gothically grand and well 
 upholstered. The foremost pews garnered the 
 aristocracy of the town, and the rear ones 
 were free for stray publicans. This was the 
 church to the erection of which the late Gen 
 eral Horser had so nobly contributed. Facing 
 the communion table was the grand slab
 
 FAITH. 9 
 
 erected to his memory, and as the communi 
 cants descended from the rails they were con 
 fronted by the inscription which rehearsed the 
 general's virtues, and by the big revolver in 
 alto-relief on the marble were reminded of the 
 invaluable service he had done the world. The 
 adjoining slab was vacant. It had been ap 
 plied for by a man who would have paid much 
 to have his own insignia cut upon it in a shape 
 not much unlike a bowie knife, but he had not 
 amassed sufficient millions to dignify his vulgar 
 sculpture, and the vestry rejected the blazonry. 
 The slab stood vacant and still waits to com 
 memorate the inventor of that perfection in war 
 machinery which shall blow a million of men 
 at once to atoms, and cancel the cannon as ut 
 terly as the cannon extinguishes the fire 
 cracker. It must be confessed that the Rev. 
 Mr. Bowen did not ascend the pulpit to find '-, 
 himself confronted by the glorification of a 
 pistol pn the sacred walls, without a little winc 
 ing in the soul, which he could not overcome 
 the first, nor the second, nor yet the twentieth 
 time. But he was too thoroughly a man of the 
 world to let this unpleasantness appear, and
 
 10 FAITH. 
 
 his sermons were most undisturbedly serene in 
 style and polished in delivery. 
 
 We have called the son of the church a man 
 of the world. It is no anomaly. True, lie 
 never attended theatres or balls, and had re 
 nounced all possible secular eminence for the 
 pulpit ; but to the world, so far as the chyrch 
 indorsed it, he stood committed. There \vcre 
 persons in his congregation who had become 
 rich by questionable means. To this wealth, 
 as a fact, Mr. Bowen never dreamed of taking 
 exception. They were mostly Christians 
 their salvation was tolerably certain these lit 
 tle matters were between themselves and God. 
 Mr. Bowen drew his large salary, lived in his 
 handsome house, and moved gracefully about 
 the chancel, as well as the drawing-rooms of his 
 parishioners, undisturbed. Certain enthusi 
 asms appeared in the earlier years of his min 
 istry, involving a free translation of the rubrics. 
 It was rumored that he observed extra fasts, 
 that he wore hair-cloth shirts, and that he ap 
 proved of flowers on the altar. An Ash-Wed 
 nesday swoon strengthened the impression of 
 asceticism, and the introduction of choir boys
 
 FAITH. 1 1 
 
 went to confirm his Ritualistic tendencies. 
 When he had reached his twenty-eighth year, 
 and was still unmarried, it was positively said 
 that he favored the celibacy of the clergy, and 
 this rumor added romance to the interest which 
 the ladies of the congregation felt in his char 
 acter. 
 
 ' Mr. Bovven did, in truth, find himself grow 
 ing fond of the doctrine, among the other High 
 Church dogmas. He determined, when fully 
 prepared, to advocate it openly, and had ap 
 pointed with himself the first Sunday of the 
 coming September for public defence of the 
 principle. This postponement was a necessary 
 one, because it was early summer, and the 
 congregation would be out of town, with the 
 exception of a few poor people, for whom it 
 was not worth while to keep open the church. 
 Also he was going to recruit at a fashionable 
 summer resort, where the waters were cele 
 brated. September, at soonest, should be the 
 time, and during the summer he could prepare 
 a series of sermons to advocate his views, to 
 which he would devote his leisure through the 
 pleasant season.
 
 12 FAITH. 
 
 It was fortunate for Mr. Bowen's consistency 
 that he waited. 
 
 At this watering place he found himself 
 among the lions. Added to his reputation for 
 learning and sanctity, added to his very gen 
 teel connections, and added to his possession 
 of a large income, and his adoption of a re 
 spectable profession in a church almost dead 
 with respectability, were many qualities which 
 led all his female acquaintances to regret the 
 loss of such a man to the gay circles of the 
 world. He was much admired everywhere. 
 He was tall, he had fine eyes, his head was 
 Apollo-like, his dress was Brummelish, and 
 his figure discovered elegancies in keeping with 
 the rest. No stranger who saw him on the 
 way to take his early draught at the springs, 
 with an easy stagey stride, a swinging short 
 cloak, and a jaunty cap, took him for a clergy 
 man, for, unlike his brethren in that political 
 division of the church to which he belonged, 
 he avoided everything that smacked of the 
 cloth. As he was never seen at hop or ball, 
 and could not touch a billiard cue or anything 
 less innocent than a croquet mallet, he was lio-
 
 FAITH. 13 
 
 nized in private parlors and on hotel piazzas, 
 but he was none the less a lion for being 
 caged. 
 
 It was on the seventh day of his arrival at 
 the Springs that Mr. Bowen met her. 
 
 Her ! He had often heard of her the lovely 
 young widow Mrs. Mar. Yet her reputation 
 as a stunning beauty, a late sensation, a mg- 
 nificent belle, had not prepared him for what 
 he was to meet. He had not sought the ac 
 quaintance. It came upon him unawares. 
 He had heard that this dashing and enchant 
 ing creature was heterodox, if not an open 
 unbeliever, and it was so unnatural that she 
 should be found among his special clique that 
 he had scarcely thought of her at all. It hap 
 pened at the close of. service one Sunday 
 afternoon. A great thunder-storm was at its 
 height, and groups of anxious ladies were 
 gathered near the church doors, waiting for 
 cloaks and umbrellas. As Mr. Bowen was 
 there exchanging comments on the weather, 
 his friend, Mr. Heyward, prepared him for an 
 introduction, and he looked down at well, 
 the latest thing in sweet faces. The woman
 
 14 FAITH. 
 
 was a dazzling blonde. One would hardly 
 notice the whiteness of her complexion, for 
 there was no contrast. Her hair and eyebrows 
 were many shades lighter than gold. The 
 eyebrows were less than an arch and more 
 than a curve, and the eyes, deep-set, full and 
 very light blue, had lashes that bent slightly 
 upward. Her mouth drooped a little at. the 
 corners, and every changing expression \vus 
 fascination indeed. Her retirement of man 
 ner did not prepare Mr. Bowen for her name. 
 This graceful, shrinking creature, just emerged 
 from girlhood, was Mrs. Mar. Her face, 
 though very beautiful, differing from his ideal, 
 was not the face he liked. For the rest he 
 immediately took exception. As she went off 
 she was too airish. There was a disposition 
 to exaggerate the fashion in her dress, for even 
 though the dress was black it was copiously 
 trimmed, and there was a goodly sprinkling 
 of pearls and diamonds on her hands, and in 
 her cars below the widow's cap. And earrings 
 were a down-right barbarism. They reminded 
 him always of South Sea Islanders. The 
 clergyman did not take to her.
 
 FAITH. 15 
 
 " Why did you not ask her permission to 
 introduce me?" he said to Heyward. "I 
 think she seemed a little displeased." 
 
 " Her permission," rejoined Heyward. 
 " She requested me to introduce you been 
 dying for your acquaintance, I hear, ever since 
 she first saw you here. ~More interested than in 
 any man she has seen on this side the Atlantic." 
 
 Bowen ignored this assertion except that 
 his eyes were a little supercilious. " Is she a 
 European importation ? " he asked. 
 
 "She has been abroad for awhile. Her 
 husband died in Europe. No, she is an 
 American. She never was heard of till her 
 marriage was poor once, and so a nobody. 
 How do you like her ? She's a terrible here 
 tic. You could not employ the season here 
 better than by converting her." 
 
 " Isn't she all the time at balls ? " 
 
 " She is beginning to go. She will be at 
 the great hop next week. Mrs. Rox and she. 
 are getting up some half mourning rigs for 
 the occasion." 
 
 It seemed that chance threw the lady per 
 petually in the clergyman's way. There were
 
 16 FAITH. 
 
 relatives of her late husband at the Springs, 
 \\\\\\ many of whom Mr. Bowen was ac 
 quainted. He met her at one dinner, and at 
 three evening gatherings, and encountered her 
 frequently about the place. He still did not 
 fancy her. That way she had of shrinking 
 back and lifting those great eyes under their 
 lids and saying nothing it was a mannerism 
 which he disliked. She hugged a great dog 
 of Col.'Rox's one day on the hotel piazza very 
 absurdly, and did many little things that were 
 objectionable. The best manner was strictly 
 negative nature no manner at all so had 
 decreed the authorities ; ergo, Mrs. Mar's man 
 ner was bad. It was unnatural and affected. 
 After a little he withdrew the charge of affec 
 tation, but his disapprobation still remained. 
 Their conversation on those rare occasions 
 when they did converse, was strictly general ; 
 but those of the ladies who had leisure to ob 
 serve the quiet by-ways of the^vatering-place, 
 noted in Mrs. Mar a growing distaste for the 
 gayer side of life at that resort. She actually 
 began to go to church and manifested interest 
 in altar trimmings and laced surplices.
 
 FAITH. 17 
 
 The night of the great hop had arrived. 
 Mr. Bowen on his way to a quiet and informal 
 supper with Col. and Mrs. Rox thought of 
 the fair young widow among the gay throng 
 at the ball-room. He had been seriously re 
 volving Mr. Heyward's suggestion and contem 
 plating the gathering in of this stray sheep 
 to the fold of the true church. Of success, 
 should he undertake it, he doubted not--the 
 only question was the time. If it required all 
 the time he could spare from his sermons 
 on celibacy it would be worth the cost. He 
 considered her wealth, influence and position, 
 and as in seeking the aggrandisement of his 
 church he fell scarcely below the proverbial 
 devotion of a Roman Catholic priest, he de 
 cided to devote himself to the task. 
 
 With these meditations he reached the cot 
 tage of his friend, Col. Rox, when to his sur 
 prise the lady whom he had half unconsciously 
 been imagining in gauzy toilette and flashing 
 jewels, whirling about at the hop, stood before 
 him in simple dark dress without ornaments 
 settled as the guest of Mrs. Rox. He was 
 surprised to find how much he had been think- 
 
 1
 
 1 8 FAITH. 
 
 ing of her. But as Mrs. Rox was her late 
 husband's sister her presence there was expli 
 cable. He observed her all the evening from 
 a distance. 
 
 There were bouquets to tie up for a fair on 
 the following day, and after supper the ladies 
 tied these bouquets. As there were several 
 bushels of cut flowers this took a long time. 
 The clergyman at the solicitation of his hostess 
 had read a selection from Tennyson's Maud to 
 the ladies and then his attentions in Mrs. Mar's 
 vicinity ceased. He did not even look at her 
 for some time, and the lady in spite of her 
 efforts grew pensive and silent. Her fingers 
 listlessly continued their employment, but her 
 eyes from time to time reverted to Bowen, who 
 was in the doorway talking to the Colonel. 
 He was just going apparently, for he was get 
 ting ready his street cigar, and his cloak hung 
 on one shoulder. Mrs. Rox said in a low tone 
 to her sister-in-law : " Make him a bouquet, 
 Zoe ; he likes violets." 
 
 Mrs. Mar picked up a few stray violets and 
 fallen leaves, and fastened them in a little knot. 
 11 He's not coming this way," she demurred.
 
 FAITH. . 19 
 
 "Throw them to him," urged Mrs. Rox. 
 
 "Would you?" hesitated Mrs. Mar. She 
 lopked up. Bowen still stood beside Col. Rox, 
 very tall in that doorway, very handsome in 
 that light, and utterly irresistible in such an ir 
 religious looking neck-tie. The little bunch 
 of violets sailed over the lamp to the doorway, 
 but instead of dropping at the clergyman's 
 feet as Mrs. Mar had intended, it struck him 
 full on the heart and fell to the floor. 
 
 Mr. Bowen looked toward the group at the 
 table. His eyes rested on Mrs. Mar very 
 keenly, and her color rose high before they 
 were withdrawn. He picked up the violets 
 without remark, said good evening, and car 
 ried them off in his button-hole. 
 
 The next day he asked his friend Heyvvard 
 to call with him on Mrs. Mar, and confided to 
 the said Heyward his intention to begin in 
 earnest to bring the fair heretic into the 
 church. 
 
 " Good ! " commended the layman. " I'll 
 do what I can to aid the consummation. I'll 
 advise her to get up some canonicals have 
 her interested at once."
 
 20 FAITH. 
 
 "Pshaw! canonicals! Nothing personal." 
 Mr. Bowen proceeded to explain that he ob 
 jected to the personalities and indeed felt some 
 hesitation in attempting the conversation at 
 all, lest she or some one else might misinter 
 pret his attentions. Religious attentions were 
 the only kind he desired to pay. He wished 
 that there were some way of informing Mrs. 
 Mar that he was not a candidate for matrimony, 
 lest she should mistake him. 
 
 "There's no necessity," said Heyward coolly, 
 " Mrs. Mar has objections to marrying a 
 clergyman." 
 
 " Has what ? " demanded Bowen. " When 
 did she tell you so ? " 
 
 " Only to-day. We happened to be speak 
 ing about it. Now I think of it, we were talk 
 ing of you. I mentioned that you advo 
 cate the celibacy of the clergy." 
 
 " I am not committed on that point," said 
 Bowen, a little nettled. 
 
 "Indeed! You are drifting there at all 
 events." 
 
 "I doubt if I am now. The church has 
 been too much a gleaner after Rome. Let us
 
 FAITH. 21 
 
 sail a course of our own not follow in the 
 wake of slave ships." 
 
 Heyward actually stared. 
 
 "Well, at all events, I told Mrs. Mar that 
 such were your views. I said you would ex 
 press yourself publicly yet that the church 
 had no headlong way of doing anything. She 
 agreed with you that the clergy should not 
 marry said for her own part a clergyman was 
 the last one she should marry." 
 
 " What reason did she give ? " 
 
 " I don't know that's all she said." 
 
 " She may never be reduced to the neces 
 sity," said Bowen. " A rich young widow 
 as handsome as she is, can find suitors enough 
 in the world without thinking of the clergy." 
 
 " Her suitors will have to be more disinter 
 ested than you imagine. The man who mar 
 ries Mrs. Mar will not marry a rich widow. 
 Mr. Mar provided for that. When she mar 
 ries again she loses her house in Fifth Avenue 
 and her income. Everything goes to her rela 
 tives Mrs. Rox and Miss Emily Mar, and 
 some nephews and nieces." 
 
 In Mr. Bowen's mind the probabilities of
 
 22 FAITH. 
 
 Mrs. Mar marrying again were much reduced. 
 He was more than ever resolved to undertake 
 her conversion. It would be a grand thing 
 for the church. Always a single woman, no 
 domestic ties could take her from the things 
 of the Lord, and with her wealth she could 
 have immense effect in churchly work. What 
 an aid she would be in his own parish at N ! 
 And the attack was begun in earnest. That 
 day he called with Mr. Hey ward, and the day 
 following without him. Mrs. Mar treated the 
 advance with a sort of mock seriousness at first, 
 but she had to deal with a skilful engineer, 
 who was morever in deadly earnest. Grave 
 conversation was very becoming to Mr. Bowen, 
 and she had to own very refreshing after the 
 small talk of mere ball-room cavaliers. He 
 discovered almost immediately that with all 
 her worldlincss and gayety Mrs. Mar was un 
 happy, and that she would like to lead a higher 
 life indeed a useful one. Religiously she 
 was quite unsettled. As a first objection to 
 his creed she advanced the doctrine of hell, 
 which she felt unable to reconcile with the 
 goodness of God. IJowen seemed quite as
 
 FAITH. 23 
 
 much astonished as though he had never heard 
 of such a place in his life, and answered, that 
 that was not a matter that need trouble any 
 Christian. Zoe thought that a lake of fire pre 
 pared to consume more than half the human 
 family was not a thing of so small account. 
 Mr. Bowen said theologians differed. It was 
 probably not a fire like the flames of earth 
 fire was a figurative expression, etc. He 
 seemed a little jovial on the subject. Mrs. 
 Mar being still unable to reconcile divine good 
 ness with the eternal misery of a single soul, 
 Mr. Bowen finally said it was a mystery ! She 
 must not expect to understand everything 
 hardly anything. She could not tell how a 
 blade of grass grew, etc. 
 
 There the point rested. Mr Bowen gained 
 her promise not to look again at a mass of 
 Unitarian literature on her bookshelves, and 
 captured the discourses of Theodore Parker, 
 which were too dangerous to be trusted within 
 reach. In place of them he left a prayer-book, 
 and Mrs. Mar promised to study the liturgy. 
 She knew nothing of the Episcopal Church and
 
 24 FAITH. 
 
 conceded that it had a right to be heard. She 
 was quite open in conviction. 
 
 Aware of the rapidity with which such con 
 viction often settles in the female mind, Mr. 
 Bowen was surprised to find that this conver 
 sion occupied nearly all the term of his stay. 
 But success was an accomplished fact. The 
 lovely Mrs. Mar went from the Springs to New 
 York, her heresies cast off" with her black 
 dresses, in full communion with the church of 
 churches, her wealth leaking into its continu 
 ally yawning coffers, her good deeds multiply 
 ing over the columns of its weekly press, and 
 the ladies of her household agitated with every 
 Ritualistic vagary, old and new. 
 
 With Bowen's return to town the old routine 
 of sermonizing and catechizing bored him ter 
 ribly. It was far pleasanter to be making 
 telling conversions and getting people inter 
 ested in the church. He had reconsidered 
 his views of clerical celibacy and Othello's 
 occupation was gone. No other theme pos 
 sessed sufficient interest. Sunday passed with 
 its irksome duties, he spent nearly all Monday 
 inditing an epistle to Mrs. Mar, and by Tues-
 
 FAITH. 25 
 
 day he had resolved on going to New York to 
 see her. While packing his valise he studied 
 out the solution of his sudden distaste for his 
 duties and set it all down to his absolute need 
 of an assistant. Not a man some woman 
 like Zoe Mar. There were women enough in 
 the parish but not one like her. He had felt 
 it a*ll Sunday. There was something lacking 
 in that glowing communion service. He had 
 missed the spotted veils and the diamonds and 
 crosses and late styles at the chancel with an au 
 riferous head bent over the rails. He criticised 
 every one impatiently. Ah ! he could never 
 do without her. She would be a queen in his 
 parish at N . And so he was off for town on 
 Tuesday, and before Tuesday closed he saw her. 
 She resided in the house of her late hus 
 band, at that time well up town. Mr. Bowen 
 knew that an aged aunt lived with her, and 
 that the Roxes were her guests for the winter 
 but he did not care to see them, and made his 
 inquiry accordingly. She soon came and 
 Bowcn's whole soul was in his eyes at the re 
 union. Mrs. Mar was extremely gorgeous in a 
 trailing pink silk ruffled to the waist. The
 
 26 FAITH. 
 
 laces were soft and the crosses resplendent. 
 Mr. Bowen disliked pink and detested trails, 
 but suddenly both became enchanting. After 
 a little he made known the object of his call. 
 He reminded Mrs. Mar that she was untram- 
 meled by ties of any kind, and he proposed 
 that she should become his parishioner at N 
 and leave town at once for a residence there. 
 He would introduce her among the strong 
 church people and she would find it a grand 
 field for her energies and devotion. 
 
 The fair eyebrows arched piquantly. She 
 laughed. 
 
 " Take the house with me, Mr. Bowen ? " 
 
 " No leave the house to your friends here 
 and come to N for the winter." 
 
 Mrs. Mar looked at him as though just 
 admitting that he might be in earnest. 
 " Alone ? and what would the world say to a 
 proceeding so unaccountable ?" 
 
 Bowen declared the world to be of no con 
 sequence whatever. The last thing he should 
 expect a woman like her to regard was the 
 world ! But she need not come alone. Her 
 aunt might come with her.
 
 FAITH. 27 
 
 Mrs. Mar shook her head*. She said, grow 
 ing very pale at the same time, that it gave 
 her great pain to refuse this request, or any 
 request of Mr. Bowen's. She did not like 
 N as a residence, neither did her aunt. She 
 had lived there once, and the place was the 
 scene of many trials and privations. It was 
 closely associated with a girlhood of poverty 
 and sorrow. She had forsworn the place for 
 ever. 
 
 Mr. Bowen asked if she would never recon 
 sider that determination. Mrs. Mar said with 
 great decision that she could never go to N 
 to live, and in addition to the reason she had 
 given there was another that she could not give. 
 
 Mr. Bowen felt very unhappy at this conclu 
 sion. Mrs. Mar made some very polite 
 inquiries relating to his parish, and after walk 
 ing about the room in an absent way he 
 replied that he detested the place as much as 
 she did. At her request he remained to dinner 
 at six o'clock, when he met the three ladies of 
 the family and Col. Rox. After dinner Col. 
 Rox invited Mr. Bowen to Mrs. Mar's studio. 
 He was quite surprised to learn that she was a
 
 28 FAITH. 
 
 sculptor, and went from one model to another 
 divided between his admiration of her excel 
 lence in that art and his doubts whether it was 
 exactly the thing for a woman to do. It was 
 among the unfeminine arts, and clashed with 
 the very rudiments of his conservative educa 
 tion. Mrs. Mar interrupted him while examin 
 ing some unfinished grape leaves round the 
 brow of the god Bacchus to invite him to 
 accompany the ladies to an evening mission 
 ary meeting. He did not leave town that 
 night, but remained to go to matins with Mrs. 
 Mar the next morning at 7 A. M. 
 
 The next week the General Convention was 
 to bring him to town among the clerical dele 
 gates. The interim seemed almost intolerable. 
 Never had he been so annoyed at the stub 
 bornness of the chief warden never so out 
 raged by the dictations of the vestrymen. 
 Never had the revolver opposite the cross 
 seemed so utterly disgusting. It was an 
 unspeakable relief to get off to the Convention, 
 where he could meet his more congenial 
 brethern in the church and be solaced with 
 the smiles of Mrs. Mar.
 
 FAITH. 29 
 
 It was on the second day of the sitting of 
 this Convention that Mr. Bowen was surprised 
 by the offer of the place of assistant minister 
 in one of the largest churches in town. The 
 salary was lower by $ 1,000 than the one he 
 was then receiving the dwelling allotted him 
 was less commodious than his house at N , 
 and farther than that, he would have a master. 
 But it was in New York, near Zoe Mar there 
 was a chance for him to succeed to the rector 
 ship as to the masters, where he was he had 
 eight, and his prospective ruler he knew and 
 liked. Mr. Bowen did not hesitate an instant. 
 
 In the evening he hied to the Convention, 
 and during the balloting sought out his fair 
 friend in the gallery. He was a little flushed, 
 partly with excitement, partly with wine, for 
 he had just come from the dinner- table of the 
 rector whose assistant No. 3 he was about to 
 become. Mrs. Mar's white veil was thrown 
 back, and her face appeared very girlish and 
 innocent between its pendant crosses. He sat 
 down behind her, hat in hand, and told her 
 that he should leave N for New York the 
 next fortnight.
 
 30 FAITH. 
 
 " Leave your parish, Mr. Bowen ! " She 
 looked amazed. 
 
 "There is a vacancy in town, here. Dr. 
 McEachirn wants me as assistant at the Cruci 
 fixion." 
 
 There was no mistaking the sparkle in her 
 eyes. She said very warmly that it would be 
 perfectly splendid. 
 
 " You will not find me backward now in 
 your service," she went on. " I was so sorry 
 to refuse you last week and to withhold the 
 reason. Mysteries are so hateful between 
 friends. I shall go down and rent a pew at 
 the Crucifixion at once to-morrow. How 
 soon will you come ? Sunday ? " 
 
 " I wish I might say yes. I would like to 
 telegraph my farewell to N to-morrow, and 
 
 "** 
 
 never go back. But it won't be right to leave 
 precipitately. I shall wait till a week from 
 Sunday." 
 
 She looked down and fidgetted with her fan. 
 Bowen's voice was a little lowered and his hat 
 shielded his face from the observers in the 
 aisle as the next words were spoken. " I am 
 anxious to ask you Mrs. Mar, whether a friend
 
 FAITH. 31 
 
 of mine was mistaken in your meaning when 
 he gave it as a statement of yours that you 
 would never marry a clergyman ? " 
 
 Mrs. Mar flushed and grew pale. She 
 seemed sad/ and her lip quivered. Then she 
 replied. " I did say so." 
 
 " Do you mean "to tell me that your objec 
 tions still exist ? " 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Bowen they will always exist." 1 
 
 Mr. Bowen had changed his parish, but was 
 not resigned to change his profession. He 
 said very nervously : " But good God ! what 
 ails us ? Look at us below there ! " and he 
 glanced at the procession toward the ballot 
 boxes. " Is there a finer body of men in the 
 country ? " 
 
 " I have a reason." 
 
 " Can't you tell me ? For heaven's sake let 
 there be no such a mystery between us. I 
 thought we were sworn friends." 
 
 " I will tell you," said Zoe, turning impul 
 sively. " I object because the clergy are so 
 far above me ! My objections are found in 
 their superior goodness their exalted and sin 
 less lives their universal and surprising free-
 
 32 FAITH. 
 
 dom from even petty faults ! Marry among 
 the clergy! I should as soon clrcam, Mr. 
 Bowen, of marrying among the angels of 
 God." 
 
 Mr. Bowen's face, if she had dared to look 
 at it, was a study on this declaration. He felt 
 that the illusion was one not impossible to 
 cure. But he only said, " Bless your inno 
 cence," and came to order with the rest of the 
 house. 
 
 He gave her his arm at the door. It was 
 easier to say the rest under the street lamps 
 than beneath the blaze of church gas. Un 
 daunted by her objections to the clergy, Bowcn 
 declared himself unequivocally. She heard 
 him through and answered at last : 
 
 "You ask what I must never dream of. 
 There is a great gulf between us impassable. 
 I can be your faithful servant and such you 
 will find me. I can be nothing else." 
 
 Mr. Bowen felt the decision of this reply. 
 He left her with a. simple good-night, and she 
 was in doubt whether he was sorry or indig 
 nant. This doubt cost her anxious hours all 
 that dreary week, but was relieved when after
 
 FAITH. 33 
 
 the Sunday had passed Mr. Bowen appeared 
 at her door just after his arrival in town on the 
 scene of his new duties. 
 
 From that day forward Mrs. Mar was his 
 right hand assistant. She was at church in all 
 weathers, at all seasons, at all times of the day. 
 Never officious but quiet and unobtrusive, she 
 was always ready to obey Bowen's dictation at 
 a moment's notice. She was quite used to be 
 summoned from her prayers before the altar to 
 some conclave of women or clergymen in the 
 vestry-room who wanted her advice or her ser 
 vices. With Bowen she was brought in daily, 
 sometimes hourly contact, and the man's in 
 fatuation deepened consequently. 
 
 One evening during one of their interviews, 
 for the family seemed to give them a tacit rec 
 ognition as lovers and left them alone, Bowen 
 asked Zoe to answer seriously whether she 
 loved him. 
 
 She looked up and said pointedly, "Too 
 well to marry you." 
 
 Bowen pronounced it devilish odd. Zoe was 
 surprised that he trod so near the verge of pro 
 fanity, and the clergyman repeated his judg-
 
 34 FAITH. 
 
 ment to himself all the way home, and was 
 absolutely tempted to set it down to love of 
 money rather than of him, and declared, much 
 nettled, that she was a mercenary creature. 
 
 At all events it was some satisfaction to know 
 that the objections to him applied to every 
 other man, especially every other clergyman, 
 and her heart might remain forever his prop 
 erty in the same negative way. 
 
 A crisis in this love affair was reached in 
 Lent. It was during the first days of that sad 
 colored season. The shades of the ladies' 
 dresses at morning service were a reflection of 
 the purple hangings on the altar, and as many 
 as three male communicants appeared in violet 
 neckties and amethyst studs. The clergy them 
 selves were less religious, for the ladies noted 
 over their prayer-books that Mr. Bowen, who 
 had followed Dr. McEachirn with the cup, 
 came out of the church with a spotted cravat 
 under his falling collar, and though concealed 
 with a surplice while behind the chancel rails, 
 it denoted irreverence. This was a little thing 
 against Mr. Bowen, as his gallantry to the wid 
 ows in the congregation was a great thing.
 
 FAITH. 35 
 
 Mr'. Bowen, for his part, passed down the aisle 
 between the rows of purple skirts sticking from 
 the open pew-doors, and despised ostentation 
 from his very soul. He then went up town as 
 usual to the house of Mrs. Mar. All the way 
 up Mr. Bowen's contempt for church colors in 
 crinoline and waistcoats was supreme. When 
 he reached the house he found mauve covers 
 on the chairs and sofas. Screen and footstools 
 were embroidered with bunches of lilacs and 
 violets. There were globes of purple glass on 
 the chandliers, and the window curtains reflected 
 the same sombre hue. When Zoe came down 
 she was in lavender silk, and crosses of cedar- 
 wood were her ornaments. At dinner there it 
 was again in the table-cloth and finger glasses. 
 Mr". Bowen was gradually reconciled to so 
 much High Church upholstery and Ritualistic 
 embroidery, but he told the ladies how much 
 he had disliked it in the pews. Mrs. Mar said 
 she would not presume to defend what one of 
 her pastors condemned, nor did she suppose 
 that there was any vital religion in the color of 
 one's velvets, but these things belonged to reli 
 gion among the respectable people whom she
 
 36 FAITH. 
 
 knew, and she was only following the fashion. 
 It was certainly no worse to follow the fashions 
 of the church than those of the world. 
 
 Mr. Bowen found in the alterations sufficient 
 explanation of Mrs. Mar's absence from church 
 that morning. It was true, Zoe acknowledged, 
 that she had been up half the night completing 
 arrangements. However at evening service 
 she would not fail. She regretted it, and con 
 fessed that she would rather have been absent 
 in the evening. 
 
 Now, at evening service Mr. Bowen was to 
 preach. It was in aid of the midnight mission, 
 and he had been up all the previous night to 
 prepare his sermon. The other ladies were 
 much interested, but Zoe drew back and said 
 nothing. When addressed by Bowen, and di 
 rectly challenged she owned her lack of zeal. 
 
 As soon as they were alone he renewed the 
 subject. Zoe treated it for some time with si 
 lence, and at last answered with nonchalance. 
 It was of all the missions of the church the one 
 in which she felt absolutely no interest at all. 
 Viewed as an agency for reform the Midnight 
 Mission was senseless. Instead of spending
 
 FAITH. 37 
 
 money and effort on such an object the church 
 had better employ it all to some purpose 
 lodgings for poor girls and decent pay for half- 
 starved seamstresses. As he pressed the mat 
 ter, Zoe's tone grew excited and highly con 
 temptuous, and Mr. Bowen actually departed 
 half an hour sooner than he had intended. 
 
 After a stroll in the park to still his annoy 
 ance, he went to look over his sermon with re 
 newed- interest, touched it up at intervals and 
 strengthened the expressions. The remem 
 brance of Zoe's scorn made his finger ends 
 tingle. The lamps were lit and the evening 
 bells at the Crucifixion were in full peal before 
 the composition was remodeled to suit him. 
 He got to church too late for the procession 
 and came in through the side door with his 
 surplice on awry, just as Dr. McEachirn be 
 gan the exhortation, " Dearly beloved breth 
 ren," which he said by heart with the book in 
 his hand, looking all about the church, both to 
 lend impressiveness to the charge and to see 
 who was there. 
 
 This took him some time, for that evening 
 the church was crowded. It was the first Sun-
 
 38 FAITH. 
 
 day evening in Lent, and as the rush theatrical 
 was a forbidden thing during that season the 
 rush ecclesiastical prevailed. Thin operas 
 through the week and crowded pews on Sun 
 day. Besides being the first Sunday in Lent, 
 Mr. Bowen had been published as the preacher, 
 and he was a fast-growing popular favorite. 
 Zoe was in Mrs. Rox's pew this evening within 
 twelve feet of the pulpit. The speaker found 
 his inspiration nearer than usual. He cast 
 only one glance after ascending the steps in 
 the region of the white veil and cedarwood 
 crosses, before opening his lips to say in the 
 regulation Episcopal monotone : 
 
 " Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, sev 
 enth chapter and forty-fourth verse. ' And he 
 turned to the woman, and said unto Simon : 
 Seest thou this woman ? ' ' 
 
 As the pews were free at evening service, 
 Mrs. Mar had been ordered to occupy the 
 middle place to keep the inside seats for mem 
 bers of the party coming late, but the instruc 
 tions were forgotten. After raising her eyes 
 at the announcement of the text, she shrank 
 into the corner, assumed an indifferent air,
 
 FAITH. 39 
 
 and surreptitiously opened and shut the clasp 
 of her prayer-book in a manner betokening 
 mingled patience and nervousness. This for- 
 getfulness of her engagements was noted by 
 Emily Rox, who came late, and as her hat was 
 pink and her sister's red, and they were thus 
 obliged to sit together, the chagrin of the two 
 women knew no bounds. Mr. Bowen posses 
 sed the indispensable to clerical success, a tell 
 ing and showy delivery. In this lay the secret 
 of his growing popularity, for in the mouths 
 of ordinary speakers, who had occasionally 
 borrowed his sermons, they were ineffective. 
 Conscious of this capability, he cultivated the 
 extreme refinements of modulation and threw 
 his soul into his accent where soul was an ad 
 missible thing on the occasion, so much so, 
 that the clergymen in the stalls behind him 
 looked straight ahead while he preached, and 
 murmured at familiar dinner-tables the great 
 church anathema, "Sensational." As he ex 
 celled in the pathetic, the season of Lent gave 
 him his opportunity to soar. It was the only 
 time, except on funeral occasions, when touch 
 ing sermons were the thing. His sermon on
 
 40 FAITH. 
 
 Good Friday, from the text, "Behold the 
 man," consummated a series of efforts, among 
 which his sermon of to-night stood second on 
 the list in glory. Mr. Bowen, after the first 
 pause, which gave the congregation time for a 
 final rustle and a last cough, opened by a com 
 parison between the differing evangelistic rela 
 tions, and devoted some minutes to the ques 
 tion whether the several accounts in the Gos 
 pel chronicled the same incident. He was in 
 clined to the belief that the difference was 
 greater than the natural disparity between his 
 torians of the same event, and in spite of some 
 trifling similarities pronounced that the inter 
 nal evidences, even more than the discrepan 
 cies of time and place went to stamp St. 
 Luke's as the record of a separate transaction. 
 This he did not presume to say as an authority, 
 but supported it by quotations from Scott's 
 Commentary at some length. His position 
 thus established, Mr. Bowen proceeded to ask 
 his " dear brethren" to look, as Jesus bade 
 Simon, at this woman robbed thus by the 
 unerring lance of Biblical criticism of the sur 
 roundings which tradition had given her,
 
 FAITH. 41 
 
 robbed of brother, sister, home, nativity, of 
 everything but of her place at the feet of the 
 Saviour, and standing a single dark figure 
 without a name, known in the historic Gospel 
 only by the magnitude of her sin and the re 
 ciprocal magnitude of her pardon by the Son 
 of God. He portrayed her according to that 
 unlimited liberty of the imagination which is 
 the prerogative of pulpit oratory, first as an 
 innocent maiden in Galilee, wherein as into 
 another Eden, Satan entered ; to whom, a 
 second Eve, she listened, and from whom as 
 from the first, he stole her Paradise. Eve was 
 the mother of mankind this woman was 
 man's nearer relative his sister. As Adam 
 shared the banishment of Eve, so are all his 
 race involved in the fall of this, her daughter. 
 This woman is at once our victim, our sister 
 nay, ourselves, in being our weightiest respon 
 sibility. She is not to be ignored she is not 
 to be cast out. Forgotten here, she shall be 
 remembered by us in the judgment. " Of 
 ten," Mr. Bowen said, "it was true, and he 
 spoke it with reverence, she was born in a 
 stable and cradled in a manger, without the at-
 
 42 FAITH. 
 
 tending shepherds and the offerings of the 
 wise, for she was often more sinless in her sins 
 than those who scorned her driven by the 
 world's own scourge to the pillar of the 
 world's contempt. Often this woman, whom 
 the congregation are called to contemplate to 
 night, has had her Gethsemane and her Cal 
 vary. Magdalene, with reverence be it said, is 
 mirror of Jesus, for in this world her days 
 eternally reflect his passion in the minor key. 
 The great Sinner and the great Saviour must 
 stand forever in the constellated firmament of 
 the church as the moon to the sun in the ma 
 terial heavens. He is the first-born of the an 
 gels she the highest of the saints, for the 
 majesty of her restoration once accomplished, 
 the absoluteness of Magdalene's devotion gains 
 her this dignity in Heaven, as Mary's purity 
 won for her the immaculate Motherhood. 
 Babylon, queen of darkness on earth, she has 
 become princess of the glorified of God. 
 Woe unto those," and the withering eye of 
 the speaker roved over the congregation, and 
 paused for an instant on the bent head and 
 close knit brow of Mrs. Mar, " who have dared
 
 FAITH. 43 
 
 despise this woman. We shall bewail her 
 whom our wrath has crushed in the Day of 
 
 Him whom our sins have slain. Woe unto 
 
 
 
 those who close the gate against this waiting 
 sister. Admit her in her scarlet raiment and 
 behold it whiter than wool ! Woe unto you 
 who would trample her in the dust ! You may 
 be glad to follow her in the judgment, going 
 in before you through the Everlasting Doors. 
 Woe unto you who refuse her the first wel 
 come into the courts of the Lord, and the first 
 place at his table, the head of whose order 
 dwells greatest in Paradise. For greater than 
 Peter, or James, or John, at the right hand of 
 Jesus, stands Magdalene, the perfect doer of 
 the Father's will, to whom much was forgiven, 
 and whose love is supreme. 
 
 " ' Not she with traitorous kiss her Master stung 
 Not she denied him with unfaithful tongue. 
 She, when Apostles fled, could danger brave, 
 Last at the cross and earliest at the grave.' " 
 
 Mr. Bowen was hardly disrobed in the vestry- 
 room when Zoe came in. She was the most
 
 44 FAITH. 
 
 brilliant of visions, for her face was scarlet and 
 her eyes gleamed with a certain unusual 
 gayety. After a few words with the other 
 clergy she asked Bowen to lend her his 
 sermon. 
 
 " You are the inevitable woman, I observe 
 it is always somebody to-night you who 
 borrows a man's sermon before he can get out 
 of church. You cannot read it, Mrs. Mar. 
 It is all mixed up with pencil marks. What ? 
 is that for me ? " 
 
 It was a folded fly-leaf she had handed him, 
 and was gone. Mr. Bowen read as follows : 
 
 " Come up to-morrow to see me, at ten. 
 Perhaps the gulf between us is not impassable. 
 
 "ZOE MAR." 
 
 And the next morning at ten, Bowen was 
 punctual. 
 
 Zoe appeared almost immediately. She was 
 dressed on this occasion in a yellow silk, cut 
 square in the throat, to accommodate the 
 usual laces. Her ribbons, ruffles and flounces 
 were all dead yellow with slight difference in
 
 FAITH. 45 
 
 the shades. Her headdress was a little vine of 
 gold buttercups, and she wore earrings of 
 topaz. Hair, dress and jewels were all one 
 uncontrasted color. 
 
 Mr. Bowen was agitated, and became 
 scarlet and pale by turns. Zoe was calm. 
 The first few words certified that the gulf had 
 become passable, and he listened while Mrs. 
 Mar reminded him in a very practical manner 
 that when she ceased to be Mrs. Mar she 
 ceased to be rich. This Bowen declared a 
 mere nothing he was impatient at the men 
 tion of it. Zoe went on to mention that 
 besides this fact there was another something 
 she ought to reveal perhaps, but she was not 
 sure. In homage to justice she was ready to 
 tell it. She had carried a sad and painful 
 secret for years, and was now nerving herself 
 to communicate it ; and her tremor left no 
 doubt of her emotion. 
 
 Mr. Bowen at this felt not a little uneasy. 
 He was aware that Mrs. Mar's parents were 
 nobodies, and that her husband had been a 
 wealthy parvenu. It might be possible there 
 was a stain on her birth. It was only last
 
 46 FAITH. 
 
 week that a highly respectable couple with 
 children grown, had come to him for a private 
 marriage ceremony. If not that, there might 
 be a rascality somewhere. Mr. Bowen was a 
 man of the world, as we have said before. 
 He felt all the disadvantages of being cum 
 bered with secrets of a disagreeable nature, 
 for in case of an unexpected disclosure, to be 
 obliged to say, "I knew it at the time," 
 would be awkward indeed. This angel who 
 sat beside him in butterfly ruffles and dande 
 lion ribbons and with hair like sunset, had some 
 painful memories. It could be no relief to 
 her to tell him it would only make two 
 parties in the secret. 
 
 " Is there any likelihood of the thing coming 
 out, whatever it is ? " he asked. 
 
 " I cannot tell sometimes I think the 
 secret forever buried. At other times I 
 imagine it is in imminent danger of dis 
 closure." 
 
 Mr. Bowen instantly desired her not to tell 
 him. He really preferred not to know. Noth 
 ing she could tell him that was among human 
 possibilities could disturb his affection or alter
 
 FAITH. 47 
 
 her in his eyes. If she had thought so, she 
 little knew the man that loved her, etc. 
 
 Zoe drew a sigh of relief at this immunity. 
 Her face grew less sad and her hand ceased to 
 tremble. Mr. Bowen further gave his reasons 
 for desiring her reticence. If it should come 
 to light that he had known any unpleasant 
 secret when he married her, it would injure 
 him vastly in the church, and his influence 
 there was a matter of consequence. 
 
 This statement was made freely and as a 
 matter of course. Zoe, fresh in theology, was 
 a little shocked at'the worldlinessof it, till she 
 recollected that Mr. Bowcn's solicitude about 
 his standing in the church was because he was 
 so earnestly engaged in fitting up recruits for 
 heaven, and did not wish anything that con 
 cerned him personally to affect that work. 
 Evidently it was the souls he won, not the 
 dollars it brought into the exchequer or the 
 worldly goods he gained, for which he valued 
 his reputation. 
 
 When the conversation had lasted for some 
 time longer, Zoe apologized for her request of 
 the evening before. " I learned so much from
 
 48 FAITH. 
 
 your sermon that I wanted to read it over with 
 time." 
 
 " I am glad if you can learn charity for the 
 unfortunate of your own sex from any source," 
 said Bowen. " You are as merciless as women 
 in general." 
 
 "You think I have such a forbidding fault, 
 and yet are in love with me." 
 
 " Love need not make a man a fool. I can't 
 shut my eyes to your treatment of the Mid 
 night Mission. It is wrong. There is no 
 nobler charity in the church." 
 
 " My interest may be so deep that you fail 
 to perceive it." 
 
 " Fearfully deep, such interest. How many 
 times yesterday did you say ' pshaw ' when we 
 spoke of it ? I confess it has thrown a dark 
 shade over your character." 
 
 "Oh, you misunderstood me!" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Mar. " I disparaged not the work, but 
 the way in which it is done. Come into my 
 studio." And she rose hastily. Bowen fol 
 lowed her to the extension-room, where the 
 morning light shone in on the models, plaster 
 casts and bronzes that adorned her studio.
 
 FAITH. 49 
 
 On the slab between the windows was a model 
 veiled. Zoe threw off the drapery and re 
 vealed a female figure chained to the trunk of 
 a blasted tree. The woman's hands were 
 bound behind her and her head thrown back 
 crushed a coronet of thorns into her temples. 
 She was girded by a serpent, with the fangs in 
 her heart. Her bare feet were on a bed of 
 snakes, whose uplifted heads coiled around 
 her. The face expressed neither hope, nor 
 resignation, nor remorse. It was the stupor 
 of a great pain, and that only. 
 
 Bowen looked at it a full minute in silence. 
 
 " It is a very inconsistent creation," he said. 
 " The head is that of a goddess, and the fea 
 tures have narrowly missed being grand, but 
 you fail in the expression. How can a crea 
 ture with such a phrenological warrant for a 
 character have such an utterly lifeless face as 
 that ? There's no such woman." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Mrs. Mar quickly. "This 
 woman has lived in all ages." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " You told us where yourself, last night." 
 
 She removed the cloth from the base of the
 
 50 FAITH. 
 
 pedestal where outlined in black pencil marks 
 were the words "F.CCE FEMINA." 
 
 " It don't apply. She's not a martyr as you 
 have her here." 
 
 " And that is your mistake, Mr. Bowen, and 
 the mistake of the church in its Midnight Mis 
 sion. Martyr, no but a sufferer notwithstand 
 ing the world's ignored and terrible sufferer. 
 It is because you and the church forget or do 
 not believe that fact that you fail to rescue 
 your angels cannot search her out. You pre 
 scribe repentance and cells for one who is 
 already lacerated unto death, and you insist on 
 saintship and nothing short of it for a being 
 who is the most crushed and wretched of God's 
 creatures." 
 
 " We can learn from you I and the church," 
 said Bowen. Zoe ignored the satire. She 
 busily rearranged the drapery. 
 
 " / have already learned from you, as I tell 
 you. I have learned that there is some hope 
 among Christians of " 
 
 " Charity," suggested Bowen. 
 
 " Not that there is something which in this 
 case is a little superior to charity."
 
 FAITH. 51 
 
 " And that is ? " 
 "Justice." 
 
 She replaced the covers in silence, and they 
 left the studio.
 
 PART II. 
 
 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 [HE engagement was known immedi 
 ately, and it was the nine days' theme 
 
 'among the extensive and aristocratic 
 circle of Christians who rented the front pews 
 at the Church of the Crucifixion. Among the 
 assistant clergymen there, our hero stood high 
 est in the general grace and favor. Of the two 
 other assistants, Mr. Fletcher was too unpre 
 tentious a preacher, and made too little of a 
 display as a man, to cause anything but sighs 
 when he ascended the pulpit, and Mr. Fos- 
 brook was too much out of health ever to be 
 seen at that elevation. Mr. Bowen stood 
 among the parishioners at the head of the trio. 
 A sea voyage had been proposed for Mr. Fos-
 
 RETRIBUTION. 53 
 
 brook Mr. Fletcher was content with three 
 tea parties a week, and Dr. McEachirn was 
 only too happy to allow the parish duties to 
 devolve on Mr. Bowen, excepting alone wed 
 dings and baptisms. In the course of three 
 short months Bowen had arrived at such a 
 pitch of popularity that his marriage was the 
 greatest event next to his death that could pos 
 sibly have transpired to stir the pulses of the 
 congregation. They all ran round to look up 
 new patterns in silverware and went to Mrs. 
 Rox assiduously to learn about the bridal cere 
 monies. 
 
 This lady, it was noted, was rather sportive 
 on the occasion, but that was not surprising. 
 She, in common with Mr. Mar's other relatives, 
 had been anxious to see Zoe married again. 
 Still, when the engagement to Bowen was 
 announced, which was in the evening by a note, 
 the Colonel and his wife exchanged looks 
 across the supper-table, and the looks said 
 unspeakable things. 
 
 " A clergyman and an intimate friend of 
 ours ! " said the Colonel ; " Maria, it's too bad. 
 We can't let it go on."
 
 54 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 Maria looked at her rings and said, " Pshaw, 
 let the poor thing alone she is in love or she 
 never would give up such a property." 
 
 They were married at Easter. Mrs. Rox 
 and the Colonel were to play the chief part at 
 the wedding. They were present at the church, 
 but withdrew shortly after the ceremony. The 
 extensive Mar connection had no other repre 
 sentative, but then many of them had never 
 seen Zoe, and too far off to be heirs were not 
 interested. But the congregation of the Cru 
 cifixion parish was there with all its neighbors, 
 and the Mars made no gap. It was noticed, 
 however, that they did not come. 
 
 Zoe settled very naturally into her new po 
 sition. Bowen's house was a rather ancient 
 gothic cottage standing farther back from the 
 street than the neighboring more pretentious 
 mansions, but rejoicing in a luxury which they 
 did not possess, a surrounding yard and shade 
 trees, which sheltered it from view of the high 
 way. It had been the original rectory, but 
 with the increasing emoluments of the church, 
 had been abandoned by Dr. McEachirn for a 
 brown-stone front up town, and being disliked
 
 RETRIBUTION. 55 
 
 by the other assistants for its location away 
 from the wealthier part of the congregation, 
 which was rapidly moving up town, and ac 
 tually talking of a new church site, it had nat 
 urally fallen to Mr. Bo wen. The furniture had 
 served two assistant ministers before, and what 
 was left revealed hard usage. Zoe set about 
 a renovation. As the curtains did not stand 
 taking down, nor the mattings taking up, there 
 was room for energy, and she immediately be 
 came very happy in devoting the small balance 
 that lawfully belonged to her from her lately 
 surrendered income in making reinforcements 
 to the linen department and carpeting the 
 floors. The jewellers' stores missed Mrs. Mar's 
 carriage, and the fashionable dressmakers saw 
 her no more, for Mrs. Bowen rode in the 
 street cars like other republicans, and she 
 bought pattern books and altered her dresses 
 into the fashion with her own hands. 
 
 " None of the Mars have been here to see 
 you since we were married," remarked Bowen, 
 " not even Mrs. Rox." 
 
 " They have the money now that is all 
 they want," said Zoe. " We can do very well
 
 56 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 without them. We have our church world to 
 attend to." 
 
 She had found the church world a pleasant 
 one since her active introduction into it. " Rev. 
 E. C. Bowen " was the open sesame to Episco- 
 palianism everywhere, and the young lady en 
 joyed that religious free-masonry existing so 
 undefinably in the respectable drawing rooms 
 and nonchalant dinner-tables of that rather ex 
 clusive " persuasion." She was in the centre 
 of the circle now drawn there from the circum 
 ference a circle of so much goodness and love 
 liness, with no one to make uncharitable re 
 marks if the clergyman's wife wore gay colors 
 at receptions or made models of the heads of 
 heathen gods. 
 
 There was one side of her character that de 
 veloped after her marriage, to Bowen's annoy 
 ance. Zoe was very fond of shows. Not only 
 shows in the more favorable sense of the word, 
 as the legitimate drama or refined operatic 
 performances, but circuses, minstrelsy and va 
 rieties. She acknowledged that there were 
 many things in the latter to offend her taste, 
 but for the sake of the music, songs and eques-
 
 RETRIBUTION. 57 
 
 trian exercises she frequented them, and con 
 fessed that there was a certain love of excite 
 ment and restlessness in her composition to 
 which they afforded a very comfortable safety 
 valve. 
 
 At last when Bowen made an extra strong 
 remonstrance on the subject, which he did amid 
 a heavy cloud from his favorite meerschaum, 
 and just after the trying ordeal of having his 
 study table put in order, Zoe agreed that in 
 consideration of the talk in the parish if she 
 pursued her course of theatre and museum 
 going, to abandon it. Within a week, how 
 ever, a still weightier annoyance was caused 
 Mr. Bowen by finding her dressing to attend 
 the immersion of a friend who was about to 
 join the Baptists. 
 
 " To a Baptist a a schism shop ! And 
 you my wife ! " 
 
 " I hardly think," said Zoe, " that any place 
 dedicated to the worship of God, deserves a 
 contemptuous name. Would it injure you to 
 say Baptist Church ? " 
 
 ' ' Church of what ? Water tanks ? " 
 
 Zoe retorted with impetus,
 
 58 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 " Why not water tanks as well as dinner 
 tables? If you say so, we will agree to call 
 our own a church of dinner tables." 
 
 A little coolness, the first since their mar 
 riage, arose out of this passage-at-arms. It 
 gradually melted away, however, and the tran 
 sient rebellion against the faith she had em 
 braced left no trace. She abandoned all di 
 version seeking, said no more of excursions 
 outside the fold, and settled unmurmuringly 
 into her own sphere, where she was busy 
 enough. 
 
 With the advent of a little Bo wen, Zoe's 
 visitings in the parish ceased, and even her at 
 tendance at church fell off noticeably. She 
 hardly went once a month, and when Bowen 
 spoke of it actually pleaded to stay at home, at 
 least while the baby was so young. This 
 point Bowen was forced to yield. 
 
 Months had gone on, and found Zoe's course 
 unaltered. She was noted, as Mr. Bowen fre 
 quently said to her pettishly (for he could be 
 pettish at times), for nothing now-a-days so 
 much as for staying at home. It did not mat 
 ter that she had a crucifix in the closet. He
 
 RETRIBUTION. 59 
 
 did not like private oratories. Sometimes 
 these religious privacies smacked of affecta 
 tion. They were as bad as ostentatious devo 
 tions and he disliked both. Let people go to 
 church as a matter of course and then come 
 home and go to dinner sensibly. The baby 
 was large enough now to be left. Could she 
 not trust Mary ? 
 
 "Yes, perfectly." 
 
 Then why not occasionally be seen at church. 
 
 Zoe evaded reply, and attacked Bowen for 
 his falling off in zeal. She reminded him of 
 the fondness he had exhibited in former times 
 for church ritual and ceremony he would 
 never have rebuked any one then for private 
 altars, or recommended "sensible religion" 
 and the dinner table sequence. Zoe pro 
 nounced the word " dinner table " with such 
 an advance on her usual scorn that Bowen re 
 treated in silence. 
 
 She saw him go with a sigh. " He little 
 knows," she said to herself "how I dread 
 meeting those people from N . When only 
 it was my own risk I could run it, but now for 
 the baby's sake." Her eyes suffused painfully,
 
 60 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 and she turned away to her usual solace the 
 cradle. 
 
 One day when the baby was about fifteen 
 months old Zoe came in from an early com 
 munion service in a manner that denoted some 
 excitement. Bowen surprised her over the 
 child, in tears. 
 
 " What has happened Zoe ? " he asked. 
 
 Certain eyes in the congregation which had 
 changed and grown cold that was all. Zoe 
 did not say so, but took her husband's hand 
 and looked up imploringly. 
 
 " Edwin, let us leave here and go to some 
 cottage in the country." 
 
 " It's too early in the year yet, Zoe." 
 
 " I mean live there stay and give up here. 
 You can plough and I do housework, and both 
 be happy." 
 
 Bowen looked at her compassionately. 
 
 " What a mad proposition. We ought to be 
 happy enough as it is. You are low-spirited. 
 Take the baby and have a ride." 
 
 And Zoe roused herself to obey the injunc 
 tion. " It cannot be averted," she sighed. 
 " It will soon come now."
 
 RETRIBUTION. 6 1 
 
 The next morning she sat by the nursery 
 window rocking the baby to sleep. Otherwise, 
 she was alone in the room. Shadows on the 
 walk drew her eyes to the gate, and she saw 
 coming up the path three clergymen. She 
 perceived that they were clergymen by the cut 
 of their cloth ; as her gaze was prolonged, she 
 recognized Rev. J. D. Fletcher, D. D., Rev. 
 A. K. Sallenlawson, D.D., LL.D., and Rev. 
 Harriman Ackerly Troy, D. D., LL.D., 
 D.C.L. The first of these gentlemen was her 
 husband's associate assistant at the Crucifixion, 
 the second was a noted flowery pulpit orator, 
 but grossly low-church the third was that 
 sound and exemplary and highly conservative 
 churchman, who had missed, by one vote only, 
 the last election for bishop of his own diocese. 
 Clergymen on that walk were no uncommon 
 spectacle, but this was a remarkable coming 
 of clergymen. They were of a different stripe 
 in politics high-church, low-church, and mid 
 dle church there they came all abreast. 
 Something had produced great unity. They 
 were walking very slowly. Their conversation 
 was grave and there was not a smile in the
 
 62 RETRJBUTION. 
 
 company. They had come on business. 
 Messrs. Troy and Sallenlawson were men 
 whom Bowen met at state-dinners or at the 
 Bishop's receptions. They were comparative 
 strangers. Something about them reminded 
 Zoe of the two or three witnesses prescribed 
 in the Scripture. She rose with a shudder. 
 They stood some minutes on the porch before 
 they rang the bell. 
 
 Still hushing the child to her breast, Zoe 
 went to her husband's study. Bowcn was 
 there the gentlemen's cards were in with a 
 request to see Mr. Bowen alone on very im 
 portant business. Bowen sent the girl to in 
 vite the gentlemen in. . He threw down the 
 pencilled message and slammed his hat and 
 gloves on the table. 
 
 " I have come to prepare you," said Zoe 
 tremulously. 
 
 " You can't prepare me ! My God ! I've 
 expected nothing short of it ! I've got the 
 appointment to that vacant missionary bishop 
 ric across the Mississippi. We've all been 
 quaking a week among the strong parishes. 
 What brings old Troy here but that ? and
 
 RETRIBUTION. 63 
 
 Sallenlawson never comes here except as a 
 tag to the Bishop ! I wish some earthquake 
 would swallow up all of God's footstool west 
 of the Rocky Mountains ! " 
 
 " Need you go ? " 
 
 " What can I say ? I'm neither old nor sick 
 nor incompetent. If I say I'd rather stay here 
 than go tagging about the Indian country to 
 be frozen in snow and jolted to death in carts, 
 and finally scalped, and for half the salary 
 I have now, what a howl there would be ! Dr. 
 Troy would cut his throat before he would go 
 himself! Hang him ! " 
 
 The object of this malediction arrived in the 
 hall door way just after Zoe's retreat through 
 the next portal. Mr. Bowen did not rise for 
 five full seconds, but it took his visitors that 
 amount of time to get in. By that time he 
 had forced a smile, and shook hands all round 
 with due decorum, but the smile was sickly 
 and the hand rather nervous, for Mr. Bowen 
 was not naturally a hypocrite. Yes, it was 
 plainly enough a committee. They sat down 
 like a row of judges. They all hemmed and 
 hawed and looked disturbed. Mr. Fletcher,
 
 64 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 most of all, as he was Bowen's personal friend. 
 Fletcher said, " My dear fellow," and Dr. 
 Troy said, " My dear Mr. Bowen," and Mr. 
 Sallenlawson said, "Our dear brother in the 
 Lord," and they all looked like people who 
 had very disagreeable feelings generally. 
 
 " We have come here on a very unpleasant 
 errand this morning," Dr. Troy managed to 
 say " a very painful matter indeed." 
 
 Mr. Bowen drew a sigh of relief. This was 
 not the way in which gentlemen and church 
 men would announce a promotion to any of 
 their own body. He felt at peace with the 
 Rocky Mountains, nor did the words " bad 
 news," trouble his soul. Something was the 
 matter in the church somewhere. It was not 
 impossible that the Rector was dead. Mr. 
 Bowen's ideas flashed through the conse 
 quences the vacant place the next election 
 twelve thousand a year the control of the 
 church still he did not wish the suspicion cor 
 rect. God forbid ! He would not admit to 
 himself in the depths of his soul that he had 
 thought of it. He asked, ""Is the Rector 
 well ? " They all said " yes."
 
 RETRIBUTION. 65 
 
 "Then, gentlemen," replied Bowen, "I am 
 all at sea. 'What is the matter ? " 
 
 " Mr. Sallenlawson is spokesman," said 
 Fletcher, looking as though he would have 
 changed his location for that of the North 
 Pole. 
 
 Mr. Sallenlawson suggested a few words of 
 prayer prior to the communication. Mr. 
 Bowen looked submissively at Dr. Troy, and 
 his eyes twinkled toward Fletcher, whose grave 
 orbs did not respond. Dr. Troy waved away 
 the suggestion by a hasty gesture of the hand 
 and said: " Not at all necessary much better 
 explain matters at once to Mr. Bowen, as we 
 proposed." 
 
 " Then this matter concerns me personally," 
 said Bowen, growing grave. 
 
 "It concerns you it concerns the whole 
 church," said Mr. Sallenlawson. "It is a 
 thing under which the whole body suffers and 
 must continue to suffer through you. It is 
 connected, Mr. Bowen, with your private life 
 with the very heart of your home with 
 your marriage relations." 
 
 " Well, I am utterly mystified," said Mr.
 
 66 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 Bowen. He laid his elbow uneasily on the 
 table, and his coat sleeve shoved up under his 
 wrist-band, and his hair grew very rough 
 under his hand. But he was mystified that 
 was all. His heart had beaten quicker, but his 
 conscience was as quiescent as a lamb. He 
 looked at the gentlemen in turn. Dr. Troy 
 took a paper from his breast and handed it to 
 Mr. Sallenlawson. That gentleman read aloud 
 at some length. It was a communication from 
 the Bishop to Mr. Bowen, expressing great 
 regret for the terrible scandal that had lately 
 been connected with his name, hoping that 
 Mr. Bowen would recognize the chastening 
 hand of an All-wise Father and bow in sub 
 mission to His will. The fangs of that deadli 
 est serpent, impurity, had struck him, and 
 through him the church in a most vital point. 
 Let not, however, despair come to the heart of 
 this brother. The church, which he had 
 served so well, would prove his great resource 
 in this dire extremity. Time could ameliorate 
 even an evil so fearful as this, and the recollec 
 tion might perish with the cause from among 
 the face of men.
 
 RETRIBUTION. 67 
 
 Mr. Sallenlawson read with agitation, ajid 
 much of the letter was incoherent. Mr. 
 Bowen lost the consolatory passages. The 
 matter was no clearer than before. 
 
 "This is very extraordinary," he said. 
 " What have I been doing? " 
 
 " No blame can attach to you, Mr. Bowen/' 
 said Fletcher; "nor disgrace; that is, not 
 directly. Of your innocence we are all con 
 vinced." 
 
 " I mean what do they say I have been 
 doing ? " insisted Bowen, and he racked his 
 recollection internally. "I have been very 
 careful or thought myself so. I have hardly 
 looked at a woman unless all the world were 
 standing by. You have all been long enough 
 in the ministry to know what the attacks of 
 church gossips are. Is this anything seri 
 ous ? " 
 
 " Very serious," said the spokesman. 
 " Mr. Bowen, this scandal attaches to your 
 wife not to yourself." 
 
 " But, gentlemen," protested Bowen, "noth 
 ing can be said against my wife. Her life has 
 been purely domestic much more so indeed
 
 68 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 than was pleasing to me. She has stayed at 
 home and taken care of her child." 
 
 They were awful words indeed that fell 
 from Dr. Troy awful to the husband's car, 
 gentle as the speaker's commiseration meant 
 to make his terms. " Before you married her, 
 my dear brother." 
 
 "Gentlemen, "answered Bowen, indignantly, 
 " if any one has been slandering Mrs. Bowcn, 
 we must trace the slander to its source that 
 is all. Its author is not beneath notice, as the 
 slander has attained such dimensions that the 
 bishop writes to me on the subject." 
 
 There was a dead pause. Bowen felt the 
 silence powerfully. He tried again to speak, 
 but it was difficult there came over him the 
 memory of how Zoe had spoken of a secret 
 of the mystery that was around her connec 
 tion with certain persons of the strange atti 
 tude of Mr. Mar's relatives toward her on her 
 second marriage. He looked from one to the 
 other of the three clergymen. He saw in 
 their eyes the sternest of certainties and the 
 kindest of sympathies. His tone changed.
 
 RETRIBUTION. 69 
 
 "Gentlemen," he faltered, " what do they 
 say of my wife ? " 
 
 He looked at Dr. Troy, who answered : 
 " It came to light that Mrs. Mar," (he avoided 
 saying Mrs. Bowen) " had not led such a life 
 as would fit her to be the wife of a clergy 
 man." 
 
 " She was a worldly woman, certainly," said 
 Bowen. " That I do not deny." 
 
 The three looked at each other. Fletcher 
 and Troy nodded to Sallenlawson. 
 
 "Worse, Mr. Bowen. Not only worldly, 
 but a highly criminal woman." 
 
 " Is the thing I am to understand neither 
 more nor less than that she was accused of in 
 fidelity to Mr. Mar ? " 
 
 Another pause. The drops stood on 
 Bowen's temples. 
 
 "Worse than that. Before her marriage 
 with Mr. Mar," rejoined Mr. Sallenlawson, 
 his voice sinking low and his eyes averted, 
 " Mrs. Bowen was a common woman of the 
 city." 
 
 Mr. Bowen gazed at the speaker utterly 
 thunderstruck. For one instant he could not
 
 70 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 breathe. Then he moved with the intention 
 to take the Rev. gentleman by the throat and 
 cast him headlong down the staircase. Mr. 
 Sallenlawson did not retreat from him one inch, 
 but Fletcher and Troy rose at once to inter 
 fere. At that instant, Zoe, who had been 
 standing close behind the door not as an 
 eavesdropper, but as an actress in a tragedy 
 waiting for her cue, came before them. Her 
 face was the hue of ashes and she still held the 
 sleeping child in her arms. They all looked at 
 her. She cast down her eyes and said, "It 
 is true." 
 
 "It's not true," thundered Bowen. "I 
 don't believe it. Zoe, deny it deny it for 
 your life instantly it's a damnable lie." 
 
 Zoe repeated quickly and firmly, "It is 
 true." 
 
 Bowen rushed forward and seized her by the 
 bosom of her dress. 
 
 " Give me my child," he said, and tore the 
 infant from her arms. Then he threw her 
 violently back against the door. 
 
 " Snake ! " with a furious stamp of the foot 
 " get out of my sight out of this house."
 
 RETRIBUTION. Jl 
 
 The room turned blue and swam Mr. Sal- 
 lenlawson sprang forward and caught the child, 
 and the wretched father fell insensible to the 
 floor.
 
 PART III. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 T was well over the parish by that 
 evening. While the reverend com- 
 'mittee were closeted with Mr. Bowen, 
 the business on which they had gone was cir 
 culating busily, no longer as an uncredited ru 
 mor, but as a verified fact. It was a most 
 unheard of thing. The ladies who walked 
 home in couples from morning service, said 
 that such a thing had never been known before, 
 with an emphasis that seemed to reflect on 
 Divine Providence for permitting it among the 
 possibilities. Mr. Sallenlawson called at Mr. 
 Fletcher's on the way back to tell the family 
 that Mr. Fletcher could not return to dinner, 
 but had stayed with Mr. Bowen, and he saw
 
 JUSTICE. 73 
 
 Mrs, Fletcher and her mother and Fletcher's 
 two sisters, Jeannette and Aurelia. They all 
 listened to Mr. Sallenlawson, drawn up in the 
 shady front parlor of their English base 
 ment house. They all agreed that it was a 
 terrible thing very painful mission for Messrs. 
 Sallenlawson, Fletcher and Troy awful indeed 
 for Mr. Bowen very unfortunate for the whole 
 church. Only nothing could really hurt the 
 church ! They all wanted to know how Mr. 
 Bowen had taken it, very much in the tone in 
 which people who did not go to the funeral 
 ask those who did go how the mourners ap 
 peared to feel their affliction. Mr. Sallenlaw 
 son thought he had taken it very hard indeed. 
 The ladies all said, " Poor Mr. Bowen," and 
 the worst of it all was his utter helplessness 
 no redress for the scandal that attached to him 
 no hope from the law. 
 
 "What! no divorce possible ?" cried Mrs. 
 Fletcher. 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," pronounced Mr. Sal 
 lenlawson. " This creature knows how to ap 
 pear well, and since her marriage nothing can 
 be proved against her. She has taken care of
 
 74 JUSTICE. 
 
 that. Mr. Bowen is powerless. He cannot 
 even get a separation. The law gives her all 
 the rights of a wife." 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher fanned herself and stated that 
 God was higher than the law. Her mother 
 said with spirit : " If I were Mr. Bowen, I 
 would go away with my child where she would 
 never find me. I would ask the Bishop to 
 send me away as a missionary among the In 
 dians." 
 
 " The Bishop will help him in something of 
 the sort, undoubtedly," said the clergyman. 
 He and Dr. Troy had agreed on the way down 
 that this affair had killed Mr. Bowen in the 
 church. 
 
 Everything that went on under that mis 
 erable roof was the affair of the parish before 
 nightfall. It was beyond the domain of ordi 
 nary gossip, and sufficient to occupy the most 
 dignified churchman in the diocese for the en 
 suing nine days or longer. Afternoon service 
 was well attended, and the ladies all took home 
 to their supper-tables the news that Mrs. 
 Bowen had refused to leave the house ! and 
 had told Mr. Fletcher she would stand upon
 
 JUSTICE. 75 
 
 her legal rights. That Mr. Bowen had then 
 gone to the house of the rector, where he was 
 at present, and that he kept his room and saw 
 nobody. 
 
 The speculation among the ladies of the par 
 ish was intense, as to what Mr. Bowen was 
 going to do with the child. He could not in 
 tend to abandon it to such a mother ! Her 
 position in that house would be comfortable 
 indeed. Some hope was extracted from the 
 report that Dr. Troy had left the baby asleep 
 on its father's over-coat, which he had doubled 
 on the study table, and then from Mr. Sallen- 
 lawson, who was sure Mr. Bowen had no hesi 
 tation about that matter. Miss McEachirn, 
 who had several callers in the course of the day, 
 set everybody at rest with an energetic, " Oh ! 
 no, indeed. Mr. Bowen has not left the baby ! 
 He brought it when he came here, and one of 
 his servants to take care of it." 
 
 This was sufficiently satisfactory. 
 
 Fletcher came home, not the person most 
 disconcerted in all the world by that day's pro 
 ceedings, but certainly not the least so. Flet 
 cher, himself, was not brilliant, and had suffi-
 
 76 JUSTICE. 
 
 cient sense to be aware of it, and Mr. Bowen's 
 predecessor at the Church of the Crucifixion 
 had been a certain Mr. Malthaus, whom Mr. 
 Fletcher had found seriously obnoxious. The 
 said Malthaus had been very popular in the 
 parish, and with one uncle and two brothers- 
 in-law on the vestry, stood a fair chance to be 
 eventually in the place of Dr. McEachirn. 
 This had been wormwood to Fletcher, but a 
 quarrel between the rector and Mr. Malthaus 
 resulted in the latter's hasty resignation. It 
 was a step immediately regretted by Mr. Mal 
 thaus and his friends in the vestry, and Mr. 
 Fletcher, fearing only that it might not be 
 final, us^d all his influence to have the vacancy 
 supplied without delay by somebody who 
 should be unmistakably superior. It was he 
 who had suggested Mr. Bowen, whom he had 
 known and liked in the Seminary, and he in 
 troduced him to Dr. McEachirn as the best 
 possible foil to the memories of Malthaus in 
 the congregation. He had, therefore, watched 
 Bowen's increasing popularity with an exultant 
 eye, and felt that in case of Dr. McHuchirn's 
 death or retirement, three men on the vestry
 
 JUSTICE. 77 
 
 would be powerless to drag Malthaus back. 
 His own small influence over the electors, and 
 Fosbrook's ill-health, would debar either of 
 them from the rector's chair, and to-day it was 
 a serious blow to him to find that Mr. Bowen 
 was so severely crippled as a future candidate. 
 Still he knew the value of time in dissipating 
 impressions, and he had faint hope of a rally. 
 
 But he returned to the bosom of his family 
 quite cast-down. His wife and sisters were 
 discussing Zoe's refusal to leave the house, and 
 Fletcher confirmed it as true. He had gone 
 to her to ask when she would have a carriage, 
 and she said, "Not at all." He added that 
 she was behaving very badly. Mr. Bowen 
 had told him (Fletcher) to inform her that 
 he would respect her legal rights, but desired 
 her not to molest him ; and after his departure 
 he had sent for the child's clothes, and Mrs. 
 Bowen had refused to give them up. At din 
 ner a note came in which after being read by 
 the family, he sent off to Bowen at Dr. 
 McEachirn's. It read thus :
 
 78 JUSTICE. 
 
 "REV I. D. FLETCHER. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : 
 
 " The girl whom Mr. Bowen has with him 
 is unfit to take care of our child. I believe 
 you know where he has gone. Please say to 
 him that I refused just now to send him the 
 baby's clothes because I am going away and 
 he will probably prefer to bring the child back 
 to Mary whom he knows to be more trust 
 worthy. Before this note reaches you I shall 
 be gone, and my husband may rely upon it 
 that I will not return. 
 
 "ZoEL. BOWEN." 
 
 Long before the delivery of this note to 
 Bowen, the miserable woman had abandoned 
 the house which was home to her no longer. 
 About dark she returned to the vicinity and 
 took shelter in a projection of the opposite 
 building. Here she watched for an hour till 
 a. carriage drew up at the gate. Then she 
 recognized Bowen going through it, and Lucy 
 following, while the moonlight shone on a 
 little face in an infant's cap on her shoulder. 
 Zoe stood gazing at the door through which it
 
 JUSTICE. 79 
 
 vanished like one in a dream. She saw the 
 shades drawn down at the nursery windows, 
 and knew that there was nothing more for her 
 to see of the child that night. 
 
 The next day, long before the hour at which 
 Lucy usually took the baby in the park, Zoe 
 was at the fence watching his coming. 
 
 But Lucy was late. She had been on an 
 illicit excursion with the child, and so ap 
 proached from another avenue. Zoe saw the. 
 infant as it passed the fountain and the child 
 stretched out its little arms and shouted ; 
 " Mamma." Zoe pushed aside Lucy and 
 caught the baby in her arms, taking it from : 
 the carriage and going up and down the walk 
 like one distracted. The child sprung with! 
 delight in her arms, and kissed her repeatedly,' 
 and the mother, laughing and crying alter 
 nately, talked to it utterly regardless of the 
 benches. "You don't know anything about 
 it, you little darling! Blessed be God, they 
 can't tell you. It's Mamma that's enough 
 for you. Ah ! you've got the true love ! 
 You'll never send her away from you because
 
 80 JUSTICE. 
 
 she was bad no, never in this world, though 
 you should grow a man fifty times over." 
 
 As it grew late she brought him back and 
 buckled him in the carriage with her own 
 hands. 
 
 " You'll bring him every day ? " she said to 
 Lucy. Lucy who stood with eyes cast down, 
 and evidently embarrassed at the encounter, 
 said, "Yes, ma'am," and wheeled the child 
 away. 
 
 The next day Zoe was at the same post, 
 but she waited in vain. The child did not 
 come. It was Saturday, and she waylaid 
 Mary at the evening market and asked, in 
 a voice that was a little husky, for the baby. 
 Mary said that Lucy had reported the inci 
 dent of the previous day to Mr. Bowen, and 
 had received orders not to go to that park 
 with Eddy any more. 
 
 At this Zoe went back to her desolate lodg 
 ing and brooded. 
 
 " If I had only brought away my clothes," 
 she said, " I could sell them and steal my 
 child. And my jewels why they would have 
 brought a small fortune ! What was I thinking
 
 JUSTICE. 8 1 
 
 of to leave them ! Oh ! I was only thinking 
 then of the child and his little smile which I 
 must not have one hour in the day ! Now if 
 I live on bread only and work all the time, I 
 cannot possibly get enough in a whole month 
 to take him away." 
 
 On this she brooded and it was her ruling 
 thought. After searching for employment, to 
 which she gave all the hours that remained 
 after her daily glimpse of the child, she found 
 a little embroidery to do. 
 
 Meantime, Bowen's life was not an enviable 
 one. Notoriety, the great terror to men of 
 his position and calibre, had come to him 
 through none of his offending. His house, 
 as far as guests were concerned, was like a 
 house of mourning. His ambition had be 
 come a mockery, for he felt, by every one's 
 demeanor, and in his own consciousness, that 
 he was as his clerical brethren had rendered 
 it, "killed in the church." The Bishop did 
 not, as Rev. Mr. Sallenlawson had hopefully 
 surmised, see fit to send him to the South Sea 
 Islands, and he walked as erectly as ever in 
 the chancel, and read the prayers as fault-
 
 82 JUSTICE. 
 
 lessly.. Still many thought they saw the 
 change wrought in his soul by suffering, and 
 all the ladies in the church invariably spoke of 
 him as " poor Mr. Bowen," when he passed. 
 
 About a fortnight after the disclosure, he 
 received an unpleasant shock by a letter from 
 the vestry requesting his resignation, on the 
 ground that his " usefulness had lately been 
 seriously impaired." He sent the letter with 
 out comment to Dr. McEachirn. 
 
 The rector was very indignant, and had 
 warm words with the vestry on the injustice 
 of such a proceeding. Mr. Fletcher, still more 
 incensed, went from one to the other, found 
 that generally they had some idea that Mr. 
 Bowen's going away was what people expect 
 ed, but never would have signed the letter it 
 self except that it had been pressed by three of 
 their number, who thought that the late sen 
 sational episode had given an unpleasant 
 notoriety to the congregation, and the church 
 was crowded to the doors on Sundays with a 
 flock of strangers very disagreeably. People 
 standing up and all that sort of thing. 
 
 "And that was all the objection," quoth
 
 JUSTICE. 83 
 
 Fletcher to the rector, "that I could extort 
 from any of them after worrying an hour to 
 get it. This story fills the church ! It's not a 
 new offence in Bowen, filling the church. It's 
 just as I thought those three fellows are at the 
 bottom of it and the next thing will be to 
 have back that infernal Malthaus ! " 
 
 To this the rector assented. Fletcher was 
 Desperately bent on averting this denouement. 
 
 " For God's sake," he said to Bowen, 
 " take no notice of them they are a parcel of 
 apes afraid you'll be too popular or notorious 
 as they call it, and they want Malthaus back 
 to empty the church again." 
 
 After a week's war between the rector and 
 the three disaffected vestry men, a meeting 
 was called to reconsider the letter to Bowen, 
 and he received a notice that it was recalled. 
 
 But it rankled in his soul. The fact that he, 
 suffering and innocent, had been summarily 
 sacrificed to the accident of a public scandal, 
 or as the letter had it, " the disturbance occa 
 sioned to all godly minds," was not to be for 
 gotten. In spite of his knowledge of the 
 power of expediency over the minds of his
 
 84 JUSTICE. 
 
 fellow-churchmen, this manifestation of it was 
 unexpected. He had not thought to be so 
 utterly forsaken so directly told that he was 
 no longer wanted so absolutely indebted to 
 the honor and faith of Dr. McEachirn. It 
 depressed and galled him beyond expression. 
 
 One evening a little annoyance came to him 
 in the shape of a card brought by an express 
 messenger, on which some clerk had written : 
 "This man has orders to bring Mrs. Zoe L. 
 Bowen's wearing apparel and diamonds from 
 No. street, immediately." 
 
 Rev. Fletcher was at tea with him, and he 
 said: " Find out where she lives, Bo wen ; you 
 may collect some evidence against her. Dr. 
 Troy said if you only could get a divorce, you 
 so young a man, you could out-live this thing 
 yet." 
 
 Bowen shook his head. Fletcher went in 
 the hall and parleyed with the messenger. 
 Mary came for orders. With some difficulty 
 Mr. Bowen inquired where were the clothes 
 and jewels that had belonged to the baby's 
 mother. 
 
 Mary said Mrs. Bowen had left them all in
 
 JUSTICE. 85 
 
 their usual places, but she had since packed 
 them into trunks. She thought it unsafe to 
 send the jewel casket, as many of the jewels 
 were very valuable. 
 
 " Bring them down here," said Bowen, and 
 by the time Fletcher came back the gems were 
 arrayed on the tea-table. Bowen looked at 
 them as though the sight gave him pain. 
 Fletcher declared it was too great a risk to 
 send them by the messenger. 
 
 "We don't know who he is; perhaps a 
 thief. If he steals these things, you will be 
 held responsible, Bowen, if you own by send 
 ing them away that they belong to her. Prob 
 ably they were all stolen in the first place, and 
 the owners may be looking them up. These 
 women are always in league with pickpockets 
 more or less." 
 
 " Send her word," said Bowen, " that Mary 
 can bring the box to-morrow. Where does 
 she live ? Did you ask ? " 
 
 Mr. Fletcher reported that it was a poor 
 quarter of the city not exactly disreputable, 
 except as poverty was hand-in-hand with vice, 
 but out of date down town car line through
 
 86 JUSTICE. 
 
 it pawnshops about two-story and dormer 
 windows above very old part of the city. 
 House kept by a Mrs. Johnson could not 
 find out anything more about Mrs. Bowen 
 from the messenger. 
 
 " I am afraid she is in need of money," said 
 Bowen. 
 
 " I'm afraid not," rejoined Fletchers " If 
 so, she knows how to get it. Don't be uneasy. 
 She is not enough in want to be in any honest 
 business, for she is strolling in this neighbor 
 hood every day." 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed Bowen. 
 
 " Keeps about within a few blocks. I have 
 it from good authority. My wife says she 
 makes some pretence of meeting your baby 
 and talking to it when the nurse takes it out." 
 
 Mary, who was leaving the room with the 
 jewel casket, turned at the door, to the aston 
 ishment of Fletcher, who always ignored the 
 existence of a domestic in his conversation as 
 that of a being without ears. 
 
 " If you'll excuse nie, sir," she said, with 
 some spirit, " Mrs. Bowen never spoke to the 
 baby after the first time ; but it's true that she
 
 JUSTICE. 87 
 
 goes to the park and looks at him, a ways off, 
 every day. Mr. Bowen bid Lucy not go to 
 that park any more, but she can't get a park 
 in the city where Mrs. Bowen don't go to look 
 at the baby. I think Lucy had very little to 
 do to tell Mr. Bowen a word about it. As 
 long as he did not know it, it didn't hurt 
 him." 
 
 Triumphant in this argument and in the 
 silence of her auditors, Mary could not resist 
 a final thrust. 
 
 " I must speak a word for them di'monds, if 
 nobody else will. Mr. Bowen knows good 
 enough that it was Mr. Mar gave her every 
 one of them, and I shouldn't think he'd sit 
 there and hear his wife called a thief without 
 knocking a hole through the man that said 
 it." 
 
 " That will do, Mary," pronounced Bowen, 
 and the girl with flushed face and sparkling 
 eyes went off to the nursery. 
 
 " That woman is an accomplice of the other," 
 asserted Fletcher. "Dear me, Bowen, how 
 unfortunate you are at every turn. I suppose 
 Mrs. Bowen brought that creature here ! "
 
 88 JUSTICE. 
 
 Bowen felt obliged to defend the innocent. 
 Mary had been ten years in the respectable 
 household of Colonel Rox, and he said so. 
 
 As for the girl, she expected nothing else 
 but dismissal. She went to the nursery and 
 began to rock the baby unsteadily. She heard 
 the front door close after Mr. Fletcher, and 
 immediately after, Bowen's step as he came up. 
 He stopped at the door, and Mary thought his 
 eyes unusually stern. 
 
 "Where is Lucy?" 
 
 " I don't know, sir." 
 
 "Tell her when she goes out with Eddy to 
 morrow to keep him in the back garden ; he 
 must not go outside the gate." 
 
 This was all, and Mary kissed the child re 
 lieved. By the time Bowen was out of hear 
 ing, her indignation had kindled and found 
 expression half aloud. 
 
 "That man's heart is as hard as a stone 
 gate-post. So it is. Thank God, I'm not 
 sent away from the child. His mother'd go 
 crazy entirely." 
 
 Mr. Bowen had just received notice to preach 
 on the ensuing Sunday, and Saturday being
 
 JUSTICE. 89 
 
 the only day intervening, he was closely in the 
 study. Mary came to the door in the after 
 noon to say that she had gone to deliver the 
 casket of jewels, but neither Mrs. Bowen nor 
 Mrs. Johnson were in, and after waiting some 
 time for one of them, she had thought best to 
 bring it back again. 
 
 " You would not have left it with Mrs. John 
 son?" asked Bowen. 
 
 " I know her, sir she was houskeeeper for 
 Mr. Mar and Mrs. Bowen, a good many years. 
 She's a Quaker lady, sir." 
 
 Bowen went to Fletcher's that evening, but 
 his unfinished sermon forced him to hasten 
 home. Once more in the quiet study, with 
 the shades adjusted and the lights ablaze, he 
 sat down by the table and drew up the papers 
 then covered his face with his hands, partly 
 to banish the handsome eyes of Miss Aurelia 
 from his memory, partly to compose his nerves 
 after his many recent annoyances. It was 
 never so hard to apply himself to his task. He 
 was so listless and unsettled. 
 
 He was roused from his abstraction. The 
 blind of the study window, which on the front
 
 90 JUSTICE. 
 
 came down to the piazza, was pulled with a 
 resolute hand. It swung open the glass door 
 was pushed in and someone entered. It was 
 Zoe, but so thin, worn, and shabbily dressed, 
 that Bowen hardly knew her. There, was a 
 deadly glitter in her eyes. 
 
 " My God, woman ! what do you want 
 here ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Nothing to you. I have come to see my 
 child," crossing rapidly to the door. 
 
 " Stop," said Bowen, rising impetuously, 
 while she was busy with the key which he had 
 turned. " I cannot allow you to proceed, 
 Madam. You have forfeited all right to enter 
 this house, or to speak to anyone in it." 
 
 She turned to him as he approached, and he 
 saw the muzzle of a little weapon. " I will kill 
 you if you meddle with me now," she said. 
 
 Bowen sighed. "Ah," said he, "you 
 could hardly do me a greater service." 
 
 By that time Zoe had the door open. She 
 ran up the staircase to the nursery. Bowen 
 followed more deliberately. Zoc's tone had 
 turned to one less desperate and more despair 
 ing.
 
 JUSTICE. 91 
 
 " Oh, Mary ! he doesn't know me ! Eddy ! 
 don't be afraid won't you look at Mamma ? 
 It's Mamma come back to her baby a little 
 while ! " 
 
 The child shrank. Zoe said bitterly, "The 
 work so far is well done." 
 
 " Here, try him with this," said Bowen, ad 
 vancing and taking off his watch. Zoe 
 proffered it but the child was looking steadily 
 and did not notice the inducement. She laid 
 it aside and held out her hands. The child's 
 blank face was crossed with a gleam of recol 
 lection he got down and tottered forward 
 said " Mamma," and clung to her neck. 
 
 Bowen went down to the study, but he could 
 not compose his mind again to his duties. He 
 felt uneasy at the situation. Here was that 
 woman again actually under his roof ! He had 
 not the heart to send her away indeed it 
 would make a terrible scene in her present re 
 bellious disposition ; and yet what a position 
 for him to be placed in if anybody who knew 
 her should happen to get hold of it. After an 
 hour he sent for Mary and asked whether the 
 baby's mother was still up-stairs.
 
 92 JUSTICE. 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir." 
 
 " How long is she going to stay ? " 
 
 " I don't know, sir. She says he mustn't 
 forget her again. She says if she must go now, 
 she'll take Eddy with her. Shall I take any 
 word to her ? " 
 
 " No " Mr. Bowen had settled into resigna 
 tion and calmness. " Let her alone." 
 
 The night wore on, and the sermon pro 
 gressed slowly. It was only with the dawn of 
 day that it was finished. He turned off the 
 gas and went into the low parlor fronting on 
 the garden, and throwing up the sash, sat down 
 in the fresh breeze of the morning. The bells 
 at the Church of the Crucifixion were ringing 
 out six o'clock, and the morning sun threw its 
 rays across the Gothic pinnacles fronting that 
 cruciform structure, and on the luxuriant grape 
 vines that mantled the garden wall. The 
 breath from a bed of white and colored lilies 
 at the window rose to his nostrils at the in 
 coming air, and soon dispelled the giddiness 
 consequent on his night's vigil. 
 
 Before long there were signs of life in the 
 house. The door of the kitchen opened and
 
 JUSTICE. 93 
 
 Zoe came out. She carried her hat in her 
 hand and her shawl on her arm. It seemed 
 quite natural to see her there, and Bowen, as 
 he looked at her was forced to pay internal 
 homage to her indomitable beauty. In spite 
 of the evidences of suffering, it was all there, 
 only more delicate and sylph like, and in 
 sharper outlines than before. She hesitated a 
 moment, then as he did not move, advanced 
 and laid her arm among the lilies on the win 
 dow-sill. 
 
 "I would like to ask you a question," she 
 said. 
 
 " Allow me to ask first if you have any con 
 sideration for me ? " 
 
 "The utmost," rejoined Zoe. "You fear, 
 I suppose, that some one may pass and see me 
 here. It's the best way to talk to you outside 
 the house. People will think I am refused ad 
 mission. That would be according to canon, 
 and preserve you from blame." 
 
 "I think, to look at you, one must believe 
 in lost angels," said Bowen. " How infernally 
 you have swindled me, Zoe does your con 
 science never tell you so ? "
 
 94 JUSTICE. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," she answered, "It 
 was you who swindled me." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Yes ; did you not preach in the church 
 yonder, that the Magdalens are saints of God 
 at his right hand ? Either you meant some 
 thing or you meant nothing. If you meant 
 nothing, it was a down-right swindle, and if 
 you meant something, then I was justified." 
 
 " It's very proper for people to repent and 
 to be saints," said Bowen, " and to sit on the 
 right hand of God, if they can get there. But 
 it's rather a lack of saintly humility while on 
 earth to marry clergymen of the church as re 
 spectable women." 
 
 " Ah ! we may be saints of God, but to the 
 dignity of clergymen's wives we are not to as 
 pire. I understand now ; but at the time it 
 deceived me. I really thought you meant it 
 all that having altered my life, I was a respect 
 able woman, and that being good enough for 
 the kingdom of God, I was good enough for 
 you." 
 
 " And you were judge and jury on that 
 point so honestly."
 
 JUSTICE. 95 
 
 " Did I not offer to tell you ? You refused 
 to hear and why ? You remember why ! I 
 am sorry now. I see that I should have in 
 sisted on your knowledge of everything. 
 Then all the trouble would have been spared 
 to you, as you would not have married me." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that," said Bowen, in 
 a lowered and grave tone. 
 
 Zoe drew a long breath, her color had risen 
 to her temples she looked at him undecided 
 and wavering for a minute then became self- 
 possessed. 
 
 "And when the exposure came? What 
 would you have done ? " 
 
 " I might have done a dozen things." 
 
 "You would have done precisely as you 
 have done abandoned me before men and 
 violated your vows before God. It has trou 
 bled you that I am here now I will never so 
 trouble you again if you will let me go in 
 again and take away my child. As your wife 
 and his mother,. you must acknowledge that I 
 have not sinned. Once gone you can easily 
 forget me and the ruin I have wrought." 
 
 "Take the child what! away from me?"
 
 96 JUSTICE. 
 
 "You have taken him away from me and 
 kept him from me for three months. Now it 
 is my turn." 
 
 "But the child must be considered, Zoe. 
 Are you not willing to leave him for his own 
 sake ? " 
 
 " I would take him from you for his own 
 sake. Which is most unfit to bring him up ? 
 you or I. I ask no other earthly privilege 
 than to have the whole care of him. You are 
 contented to leave him to a false and ignorant 
 hireling like Lucy, and count her moral in 
 struction and guardianship superior to that of 
 his mother. You see him perhaps fifteen min 
 utes a day or not at all. I do recognize your 
 right to the child one-half the time, but you 
 forbid me to see him ever. I suppose you ob 
 ject to racks and thumb-screws you imagine 
 yourself to be humane but the torture you 
 have inflicted on me in separating me from my 
 own flesh and blood, I would gladly have ex 
 changed for that of the Inquisition." 
 
 " I have been entirely justified in the opin 
 ion of women who are themselves mothers and 
 Christians besides."
 
 JUSTICE. 97 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I knew all the time it was the 
 Christians," Zoe answered, with her eyes 
 aflame. " I knew it was they who have made 
 me stand hours in the street watching for my 
 little baby, whom his Christian father sent 
 another way, lest I might see him. Justified 
 by the Christians ! Oh ! such Christianity ! 
 It stinks in the nostrils of God." 
 
 The oath rung out round and full from the 
 woman's lips. The scorn of her face was su 
 perb. Bowen felt powerless to utter any re 
 buke. Zoe drew her shawl over her shoulders 
 to go. 
 
 " What question did you have for me ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I wanted to ask you and your people, does 
 forgiveness forgive ? But I won't ask it now. 
 I see that I have misunderstood my offence. 
 It is not so much that I did wrong, but that I 
 tried to live differently and did. My greatest 
 offence was in daring to have a home and to 
 be happy in it, in being innocent among the 
 rest of the world, instead of going into a cell 
 to mourn forever in sack-cloth and ashes away 
 from all mankind."
 
 98 JUSTICE. 
 
 "Wait a moment," said Bowen, as she 
 turned away. " I acknowledge that in one 
 point I have done wrong, and I will repair it 
 as far as possible. Mary shall bring the baby 
 to you every day and leave him with you half 
 the time. Will that do ? " 
 
 Tears fell from Zoe's down-cast lashes on 
 the lilies. " Yes and I am glad you are so 
 far just. Will he come to-day ? " 
 
 " Yes, at four o'clock, and I will send for 
 him again in the morning." 
 
 Zoe stood irresolutely. " I have a confes 
 sion to make now. You wronged me so 
 cruelly in this matter, that I meant to retaliate 
 in kind. I intended to sell my jewelry to-mor 
 row, and then to take the child and go away 
 with him." 
 
 " Well I'll forgive you that but don't har 
 bor any more such wicked intentions." 
 
 Zoe bowed with a very subdued and grate 
 ful air, and with that moved to go. Bo wen, 
 yielding to a sudden impulse, took her hand, 
 and leaned forward to kiss her. She drew 
 back with a look that brought him to himself, 
 and walked away rapidly, leaving him cursing
 
 JUSTICE. 99 
 
 his folly, in unspeakable annoyance, both at 
 being so rebuked and at the indiscretion it 
 self. 
 
 He had not very long to curse, as it soon 
 was time for early service, and his lecture 
 came off then. He was glad that at the high 
 ten o'clock hour Dr. McEachirn was to hold 
 forth, for he was strangely out of sorts. As 
 he looked at the women spangled and jeweled 
 and bustled, powdered and perfumed, gazing 
 up so serenely over their gently waving fans, 
 at the pulpit, he turned away to the vision of 
 that morning's outlaw, her shabby attire, her 
 draggled skirts, her face like the dawn. 
 How pure and clear and unearthly and spir 
 itual she had seemed ; and yet how human 
 how maternal how resentful. His mind held 
 distinctly every item of the picture, even to 
 the frayed button- holes on her coarse black 
 dress and her rumpled collar, and the golden 
 hair that massed itself on her shoulders when 
 she walked away. And how she had turned 
 from him with what a flash of the eye and 
 rapid step. Ah ! not a woman of all this well- 
 dressed multitude, whose hands were so heavy
 
 100 JUSTICE. 
 
 with jewels, could ever have framed so effectu 
 ally that telling execration pronounced by this 
 outcast, judged, condemned, yet utterly en 
 chanting sorceress, who had gone with the open 
 ing day. Mr. Bowen knelt in the prayers, and 
 stood in the chants, and bent in the glorias, 
 and reverenced the altar when he went out, 
 but it was all mechanical. His thoughts were 
 far away. 
 
 That day the child went to see its mother, 
 and that night though not till it was fairly 
 dark, Mr. Bowen followed the child. 
 
 He found Zoe in the front parlor of the 
 house which was her residence. She had been 
 busy all the morning, getting ready for the 
 child's arrival. At first, although annoyed to 
 find her paying him so little attention, he ex 
 cused it because she was engrossed by her 
 little guest; but when the child was rocked to 
 sleep in her arms, there was nothing to make 
 amends for the strict but very frigid politeness 
 of her manner. She was so evidently willing 
 that he should go away, that Bowen quitted 
 the house in a tumult of chagrin. 
 
 " Hardly spoke to me hardly looked at
 
 JUSTICE. 101 
 
 me ! After such a risk as I have run in going 
 to see her ! The ungrateful jade ! " 
 
 On Monday Zoe bought new. playthings, 
 and worked all day on some little clothes. 
 Four o'clock, but the child came not. It grew 
 dark and still no baby. Mrs. Johnson offered 
 all the consolation in her power. " I think 
 thy husband will bring him when it gets late 
 enough. Zoe, thee must have patience." 
 
 This expectation Zoe did not entertain, but 
 just at tea-time Bowen came in with the child 
 in his arms. "Zoe," he said, "there's no 
 more miserable being on earth than I am. 
 Don't break my heart entirely remember the 
 child is not all you have in life. Lucy is dis 
 missed, and I am going to bring him to you 
 when Mary cannot come." 
 
 Zoe could not refuse a welcome. She was 
 all smiles in spite of herself. A child's high 
 chair was at the tea-table, which waited in her 
 room, and a third place was improvised for 
 Bowen. It was hard to say which one of the 
 reunited family was the happiest. There was 
 one drawback. Zoe noticed that Bowen 
 shunned the windows until the shades were
 
 102 JUSTICE. 
 
 down, and that when there came a ring outside 
 he was a little nervous and suspended his 
 meal until the door was heard to close. 
 
 Still he came again, twice that week, and 
 often through the month. It was an uneasy 
 walk, but once there the uneasiness vanished ; 
 for while there he was secure from detection 
 and loth to trust himself again to the possible 
 eyes of the street. He remembered the 
 Scripture, " Stolen waters are sweet, and 
 bread eaten in secret is pleasant," and saw 
 both force and beauty in the proverb. 
 
 In fact he was desperately in love again and 
 happy nowhere else than with his wife and 
 child. At last he grew reckless in his blessed 
 contentment on this hidden hearth, that was so 
 sweet a reflection of what his now dark and 
 desolate rectory fireside once had been, came 
 to it constantly and carelessly, and neglected 
 business meetings about the parish in an 
 inexplicable manner. 
 
 It was on a Sunday morning, when this 
 state of affairs had progressed into the second 
 month. Drs. McEachirn and Fosbrook had 
 read the communion service, and the varie-
 
 JUSTICE. 103 
 
 gated lights from the Gothic windows fell in 
 rich colors on the surplices of Fletcher and 
 Bowen, who were sitting together in the 
 stalls. 
 
 "Do you know what people say now?" 
 quoth Fletcher. 
 
 Mr. Bowen declared ignorance, but not with 
 out forebodings. 
 
 " An outrageous slander, but they will talk 
 so ! Why, they say you have been to see your 
 wife, and in fact, that you are living with her 
 privately. I denied it on the spot. I said it 
 was a false and outrageous calumny." 
 
 " Very glad you did deny it," said Bowen. 
 " I trust you always will." 
 
 " Certainly," said Fletcher, " glad I can do 
 so on your authority. ' Somebody goes to see 
 her, but I knew it could never have been you. 
 Come, we must get the cups." 
 
 And the two reverend gentlemen hied to the 
 opposite side of the chancel, and solemnly 
 said : " The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 which was shed for thee " more than a hun 
 dred times over. Then Mr. Fletcher went off 
 to his dinner and Mr. Bowen back to his study
 
 104 JUSTICE. 
 
 and his conscience. He threw his hat and 
 gloves on the table and said half aloud, 
 
 "I have lied." 
 
 And against Zoe ! against a wife who loved 
 him better than anyone else did in the world, 
 through time-serving fear of those whom he 
 had already seen were ready to sacrifice him 
 at whatever moment it should seem the most 
 politic thing to do. 
 
 It was well for him that it had come to the 
 issue. It forced him to analyze this fear. He 
 began to excuse himself to his own reproving 
 soul. He said to himself it was impossible to 
 tell the truth certainly the truth would have 
 ruined him. He had lied to Fletcher because 
 Fletcher would repeat it in good faith he 
 would not have minded telling Fletcher as far 
 as Fletcher alone was concerned nor Fos- 
 brook, nor Dr. McEachirn. But they were 
 all his friends. The world at large was his 
 enemy. Well at all events he had saved 
 himself through the falsehood, and it was a 
 fact that he was saved but then at the ex 
 pense of being the meanest jackass in all 
 Christendom.
 
 JUSTICE. 105 
 
 Some of the inimical vestry were to dine 
 that day with Mr. Fletcher. Jeannette and 
 Aurelia had extra hair to coil up for the occa 
 sion. Fletcher had brought home the news of 
 Mr. Bowen's denial exultantly. Jeannette 
 carried it from the cool hall up to the region 
 of the braids and switches where was her sis 
 ter. They conned it over. Jeannette said of 
 course she had known it was a slander all the 
 time. 
 
 "I wonder," said Aurelia, reflectively, "if 
 he got a divorce from that horrible woman, 
 whether it would be a sin to marry him ! " 
 
 At dinner the vestry men brought a piece of 
 news that startled everybody's pulse. There 
 had been an election that day for an assistant 
 rector in the church. Dr. McEachirn had 
 asked for it several weeks before. The vote 
 had just been taken, and it was an absolute 
 fact that Mr. Bowen had been elected. 
 
 Fletcher hurried off to Bowen with the 
 news. He found that gentleman at a solitary, 
 gloomy, and unusually late dinner-table. Mr. 
 Bowen listened utterly astonished. He had 
 known of the election indeed, but had not
 
 106 JUSTICE. 
 
 thought of it as possessing the least connec 
 tion with himself. It revealed to him that his 
 popularity had been gradually recovering 
 from the terrible shock of Zoe's destroyed 
 reputation. It was true he had been elected 
 by a majority of one only, but it was a 
 hopeful sign. Fletcher declared that Bowcn 
 would undoubtedly yet be rector of the 
 parish. 
 
 " When Dr. McEachirn goes to heaven, ( I 
 don't know that he ever will ) you'll step into 
 the place, naturally, Bowen. There will be a 
 mere form of an election a necessary form 
 that's all. We may count Malthaus quite dead 
 now, thank God." 
 
 " It's inexplicable," said Bowen, " I thought 
 I was ruined in the church." 
 
 " So we all thought, and two months ago, I 
 should have said that the congregation, if 
 their vote could have been taken, would not 
 have agreed with it. But that's not so to-day. 
 The populace fluctuates you have half, cer 
 tainly the female half, in your favor, and Dr. 
 McEachirn, of course, throws all his influence 
 with everybody in your cause."
 
 JUSTICE. 107 
 
 " I know he did on one point." 
 
 "Yes, indeed, and now. He made a little 
 address to the vestry in which he recommended 
 you highly for the office." 
 
 "I did not expect it even from him." 
 
 " There may be an explanation," said 
 Fletcher drily. 
 
 " Please unfold it. I have no idea.'' 
 
 " Well, the doctor's old don't expect to live 
 long. He has an unmarried daughter whom 
 he would like to see well settled. Fosbrook is 
 a married man, and so am I." 
 
 " And what am /in the name of God ? " 
 
 " The nearest approach to an unmarried 
 man of any of the three ! People think you'll 
 get a divorce seem to expect it." 
 
 " And do you imagine that they would con 
 sider it a proper thing for a divorced clergy 
 man to marry again ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, people call your marriage 
 null and void in the sight of God. I honestly 
 think that if you were not to get divorced at 
 all, you might marry Miss Belle McEachirn 
 in the church, and her father would marry 
 you, and all the congregation would attend the
 
 108 JUSTICE. 
 
 wedding, and nobody would arrest you for 
 bigamy either. Men that marry hell-cats are 
 not married they are only legally bound ? " 
 
 " My dear Fletcher ! how absurd ! " 
 
 "Not at all. Belle McEachirn is in love 
 with you. Aurelia says so." 
 
 Mr. Bowen had the grace to blush. 
 
 " And you're a fool if you don't go in for a 
 divorce. You'll have proof enough people 
 arc interesting themselves to get evidence for 
 you. They are watching the house where 
 Mrs. Bowen lives to see who goes in. As I 
 intimated this morning, she has a visitor." 
 
 At this Bowen's color gradually sank. He 
 closed his lips tightly, and pressed on the table 
 the end of a pencil he contemplated till it 
 broke. Fletcher took these for signs of natu 
 ral indignation. 
 
 " I watched the house myself one night 
 actually I did Fred Jones and I." 
 
 " The devil you did ! " thought Bowen. 
 
 " And we saw a man go in very familiar 
 apparently he had a night-key." 
 
 "What did he look like?" 
 
 " It was very dark, and we saw only his
 
 JUSTICE. 109 
 
 back, but the most rakehelly subject you can 
 conceive. Evidently a godless, worthless, un 
 principled man about town." 
 
 " Indeed!" 
 
 " Yes, and he stayed the Lord knows how 
 long. We got tired of waiting. We walked 
 up and down the sidewalk for three hours and a 
 half, and as he didn't reappear we went away." 
 
 " Perhaps he belonged there," said Bowen, 
 " a boarder or something." 
 
 "No, for my wife and Mrs. Fosbrook have 
 discovered that there are no male lodgers in the 
 house there is only one man on the premises 
 Mrs. Johnson's father very old and de- 
 crcpid. This fellow was young enough, and 
 walked as though the devil was after him. 
 Opened the door and went through like a flash. 
 Such a man as that is enough to ruin the rep 
 utation of a house for Mrs. Johnson, even pro 
 vided she had ho such person as poor Mrs. 
 Bou'cn there." 
 
 Mr. Bowen's eyebrows arched a little. 
 " What took you there, Fletcher? Had you 
 heard anything, or did you do it merely at 
 your own instigation ? "
 
 no JUSTICE. 
 
 "Of myself not exactly either. Somebody 
 had it that you went there, and I thought we 
 must upset that. I knew at once that half of 
 it might be true ; that it was somebody, we 
 were going to make sure. If the fellow had 
 not stayed so late we should have seen him 
 face to face asked him for a light or some 
 thing. Just so that we could have sworn it 
 was not you." 
 
 "And suppose your calculation had failed 
 Fletcher, and you had met me instead of a 
 stranger ? " 
 
 " If I had," said Fletcher, very gravely, " I 
 should never have breathed such an indiscre 
 tion on your part to a living soul ! You may 
 be very sure of that ! But I should have re 
 monstrated with you most earnestly, and I 
 should have thought you very, very weak and 
 very wrong ; indeed, I might say, very crimi 
 nal ! " 
 
 Bowen was a little 'stirred. He shrugged 
 his shoulders. " Wrong ? Why isn't she my 
 own lawful wife ? Did I not swear before the 
 altar of God to forsake all others, and keep 
 only to her so long as we both live ? How
 
 JUSTICE. in 
 
 could Dr. McEachirn after saying over her 
 head that God had joined us together, marry 
 me to any other woman while she lives ? " 
 
 " Well, now, Bo wen, that will do for you 
 to say here to me, (only I hope you won't say 
 it to anyone else) and I would respect your 
 scruples about marrying another woman. 
 But if you'll take my advice, you won't think 
 of going to see her. You would simply cut 
 your own throat. You're a young man yet 
 you have a long life before you. Dr. Mc 
 Eachirn won't live a great while, and by the 
 time he dies, everybody will be on your side. 
 Then there's the rectorship and twelve thou 
 sand a year ! Now don't throw away that 
 handsome and lucrative and influential position 
 for a mess of pottage. It's very well in you 
 to be sorry for Mrs. Bowen very kind of you 
 to send the child to see her, (though a great 
 many people have demurred about that), but 
 such a woman at the head of a parish why 
 look at it ? think how impossible it is ! Now, 
 if you could marry the rector's daughter, or 
 any girl of like position, it crushes out your 
 past unfortunate mistake at once ! People
 
 112 JUSTICE. 
 
 would have to forget it. You are already sus 
 tained by the ladies and you will be rector as 
 a matter of course. Had you thought of 
 going to see Mrs. Bowen ? " 
 
 "Yes, I had thought of it," said Bowen. 
 
 " Then this is my last word. If you must 
 go if business or necessity takes you, go in 
 broad daylight, see her on the front door step 
 and talk to her there in the eyes of all the 
 world, or better still, take another clergyman 
 with you me for instance. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Fletcher left. Somehow the at 
 mosphere had grown warm to Bowen, and he 
 opened all the windows in the room. 
 
 That night he did not go out on the con 
 trary, he saw at home several members of the 
 congregation who had called with congratula 
 tions. The next day he was busy, and the 
 next evening there was a reception at the rec 
 tory. Dr. McEachirn had sent a note advis 
 ing his attendance, and Mr. Bowen felt that it 
 was only a necessary recognition of the com 
 pliment of his late election to show some sign 
 of returning animation. When he went in, the 
 sight of Miss Belle McEachirn, in a robe of
 
 JUSTICE. 113 
 
 graceful black, her gold bracelets and necklace 
 gleaming through the sable gauze on her full 
 neck and rounded arms, and her crimped blonde 
 hair piled above her forehead, forced him to 
 remember Fletcher's suggestion, and he 
 stopped a little wickedly for a few words in 
 defence to that memory. Miss McEachirn's 
 good-natured self-possession and her beaming 
 smile gave an early brightness to the evening, 
 and after acknowledging to himself that she 
 was a very fine girl, indeed, Bowen resigned 
 himself strictly to the sedater side of the as 
 semblage. 
 
 He was home late. The next morning just 
 after he had counted out and pocketed his 
 quarterly salary, an express wagon came to 
 the door. The expressman inquired if this was 
 the residence of Rev. E. C. Bowen. 
 
 Bowen who had gone to the do.or inquired 
 what he had. The men had brought home a 
 statue from a sculptor's studio. It was after 
 a model by Mrs. Bowen. While Bowen was 
 debating with himself what direction he should 
 give, the man staggered in under the statue. 
 It was the figure the model of which Zoe had
 
 1 14 JUSTICE. 
 
 shown him on the day of their engagement. 
 On the base was cut the inscription " ECCE 
 FEMINA." 
 
 It went no farther than a transient stay in 
 the hall. Bo wen felt that it was not the thing 
 to reside in that house. 
 
 "Receipt the bill here," he said, and take 
 the statue to this address, handing the mes 
 senger a card. " Leave it there for Mrs. 
 Bowen." 
 
 The wagon rattled away with the statue. 
 Bowen brushed his hat and coat and walked 
 leisurely after it. At ten o'clock and in broad 
 daylight, he stood on Mrs. Johnson's door-step. 
 The night-key which usually admitted him was 
 in his watch pocket, but Bowen restrained 
 his hand and rang the bell. 
 
 Zoe sat in the sunny parlor close at the front 
 window busy with her needle. The baby was 
 sleeping in the shaded cradle near her. She 
 was dressed rather austerely in a plain black 
 jacket and walking skirt, and her hair was 
 braided behind each ear. There was a hectic 
 glow on her cheeks, and Bowen felt instantly 
 an unusual gravity in her manner.
 
 JUSTICE. 115 
 
 " I am glad you came to-day," she said, 
 "though I was far from expecting you at this 
 hour. I wanted to talk to you particularly. " 
 
 Bowen was directly opposite the recently ar 
 rived piece of statuary. He fixed his eyes on 
 it and listened. Zoe then proceeded to say 
 that she was very deeply dissatisfied with the 
 way in which they had been recently associa 
 ting. Either Mr. Bowen was doing a wrong 
 to the church or to her. 
 
 " You are considerate towards the church to 
 give it a place in the argument," returned 
 Bowen. 
 
 " I have undoubtedly as little respect for the 
 church as the church has for me," Zoe re 
 joined ; "nevertheless that does not affect your 
 duties towards the body to which you publicly 
 belong. You are there with certain under 
 standings you occupy a position which would 
 be seriously affected if your visits to me were 
 known." 
 
 " But I don't feel that to be proper or just, 
 Zoe," said Bowen. " You are my wife before 
 God and man." 
 
 " Then say so before God and man. Don't
 
 Ii6 JUSTICE. 
 
 be bold before God and ashamed before man. 
 If you cannot tell the church publicly that it is 
 wrong, and suffer its outlawry, you should con 
 form to what it expects of you. I have felt for 
 a long time that I was wrong not to say this, 
 and have asked myself where it will all end." 
 
 " I do not acknowledge it to be any one's 
 affair," said Bo wen. 
 
 " But your actions acknowledge it." 
 
 " Well certainly it would hardly do to have 
 it known." 
 
 Zoe struggled with emotion 
 
 " Look at it a moment," she said. " Granted 
 that once I stole a loaf of bread. Well now I 
 wish to be honest ! I am honest ! Is it right 
 that my husband should force me to skulk like 
 a thief because it will not do to have it known 
 that he associates with one who is under con 
 demnation ? " 
 
 " You once asked me to go and take a little 
 place in the country," said Bowen. " Do you 
 remember it?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember it," and the color over 
 spread her face. " Why do you wish to 
 go?"
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 Bowen was silent. 
 
 " I will answer for you," said Zoe. " No 
 I would not myself consent to it unless you 
 were to see the solid value of such a life, and 
 to urge it with your whole heart. But you are 
 too worldly for that." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that your heart is in the world its 
 honors and its good opinion." 
 
 " The world." 
 
 " Well call it the church, then but it's the 
 world all the same. You preach to Mammon 
 worshippers, and preach to suit them. You 
 believe in their creed. How does it save you to 
 call your God Jesus, while you see in his tem 
 ple the very creatures he denounced and they 
 are unrebuked ? " 
 
 " Well, Zoe, what do you want to do ? " 
 
 Zoe trembled a little. 
 
 "Not to see you again, Mr. Bowen, until 
 one of two things shall happen. Either till 
 your church learns the divine rights of a wife 
 and mother, from whatever misery she might 
 have sprung ; or until you are converted out of 
 the church and theology and worldly prudence,
 
 Ii8 JUSTICE. 
 
 into true manliness and Christianity. So help 
 me God, I will never see you again till that 
 hour comes and I think it will never come on 
 this side the grave." 
 
 Bowen went to the mantel and rested his 
 head on his hand with his shoulder toward 
 Zoe. 
 
 " And we cannot part too soon," said she. 
 " Suppose some one were to ask you if you 
 had been here ? You would be ' ruined,' as 
 the world terms it ; and it is only accident that 
 has saved you from the question." 
 
 At this Bowen winced in the depths of his 
 soul. 
 
 "I feel," he observed, "that it is all very 
 unfortunate, but I cannot really see how, in 
 coming here, I have sinned." 
 
 " By secrecy. That's the sin. Separation 
 will not afflict us so much as meeting this way 
 will demoralize us. Yes we must part we 
 owe it to ourselves and honesty and the 
 sooner the better." 
 
 Bowen felt that Zoe was right, and he bowed 
 assent. But she saw by the pallor of his face
 
 JUSTICE. 1 19 
 
 when he turned again, that he felt it with pain, 
 and his voice had grown husky. 
 
 " You will still live here ? I can write to you 
 occasionally ? " 
 
 " No the world demands an utter renuncia 
 tion. I must be to you like one dead hereafter. 
 But there is something else. I have a favor 
 to ask. Last summer I was in the country 
 with the baby he ought to go again. Mrs. 
 Johnson leaves this house next week in charge 
 of her daughter and goes to her sister's, a little 
 out of town. I would like to take. Eddy and 
 accompany her. We shall return in three 
 months. Are you willing?" 
 
 "What! to be robbed of wife and child 
 both at one stroke ? And if I consent, how 
 can you reconcile that proceeding to honesty ? " 
 
 " Let it be known," said Zoe. "It is im 
 possible to do otherwise. And allow me to 
 assure you that the church cannot resent your 
 sending the child out of town with me so 
 much as it would resent your visits to me here." 
 
 This Bowen felt to be true. 
 
 " The child can go with you," he said. " How 
 soon ? "
 
 120 JUSTICE. 
 
 "To-day. I will lose no time. There is 
 one thing more. I wish to send my jewel- 
 casket back to you. As I have no daughter I 
 would like you to keep it as a gift from me to 
 Eddy when he is grown. I sold the earrings 
 that you hated so, but nothing else." 
 
 Bowen here mentioned the result of the re 
 cent election. Zoe looked astonished. 
 
 " Is it possible ! I express surprise because 
 I must tell you what you have not known be 
 fore there is a rumor in circulation that you 
 have been here. Two persons called last week 
 to question Mrs. Johnson. She told me so 
 this morning." 
 
 " Confound the meddling busy-bodies. 
 What did she say ? " 
 
 " She refused to answer. But if the report 
 had become a certainty you would not have re 
 ceived such a promotion. I now perceive that it 
 could not have gained credence anywhere. It is 
 well for your sake. Now be thankful that you 
 are warned in time." 
 
 It was a very quiet parting, but Bowen went 
 home in a wretched state of mind indeed. 
 Mary came soon with the casket of jewels, and
 
 JUSTICE. 121 
 
 a parcel of books. She asked permission to 
 go with Mrs. Bowen and the baby, and it was 
 accorded. 
 
 She departed in the afternoon. Bowen had 
 locked away the diamonds and looked over 
 the books. They were emanations from the 
 radical press, many of them purely scientific. 
 Zoe had collected what he thought a censurable 
 miscellany in her isolation. He opened one 
 and got interested, and read on because he was 
 interested. The book was one he had seen 
 before and quite despised, but he discovered in 
 the course of an hour that there was more 
 truth in it than he had expected to come out 
 of Nazareth. 
 
 The following day lie left town to see his 
 widowed aunt and request her to take charge 
 of his lonely household. He could not leave 
 it longer without a mistress, especially as it 
 might be necessary for him to keep open house 
 again. This Fletcher commended as a very 
 wise step, and the arrival of the lady completed 
 his satisfaction. 
 
 The child's departure with its mother was 
 speedily known about the parish ; but, as Mr.
 
 122 JUSTICE. 
 
 Fletcher soon discovered, it was a step forgiven 
 to Mr. Bovven by all the ladies, in considera 
 tion of the well-known fact that Mrs. Bowen's 
 health had failed greatly, and that it was highly 
 probable this would be her last summer. 
 Much patience could be felt for a woman who 
 promised to be so shortly out of everybody's 
 way. But this state of affairs Bowen himself 
 did not realize. He had seen Zoe during the 
 hours that that most insidious of all diseases, 
 consumption, left its lightest trace, and that he 
 was not aware of her illness, was something 
 which the congregation did not suspect. 
 
 The summer wore away. It was for Bowcn 
 the saddest season of his life. He stayed 
 closely in town While the other clergy and the 
 bulk of the congregation had gone to their 
 various summer haunts, and followed the usual 
 routine of services, generally with an audience 
 of strangers, for many of the neighboring 
 churches were absolutely closed. He missed 
 the child's presence in the house, and his oc 
 casional letters to Zoe were like epistles written 
 to the dead, for they brought no answer. 
 
 Of her return to the city, in October, he was
 
 JUSTICE. 123 
 
 first made aware by the appearance of Mary 
 with the baby on the familiar threshold. 
 
 The child was ruddy and strong, and Bowen 
 /ejoiced in his improvement. Mary, when 
 questioned, said that Mrs. Bowen was well as 
 usual, and further than that he did not ask. 
 Things returned to their old order. Mary 
 daily took the child to Mrs. Johnson's, and it 
 seemed always so to happen that wjienever 
 the weather was wet or severely cold the 
 baby was on his mother's side of the gulf, and. 
 in reality it was to his father that he made the,' 
 daily call. 
 
 But by this time the man had grown re 
 signed to the situation. Indeed he was now 
 very busy. A double responsibility was 
 thrown into his hands by the illness of Dr. ' 
 McEachirn, and his death, which soon followed, 
 was an event of too great importance to leave 
 Mr. Bowen or his reverend confreres time to 
 think of the living. 
 
 There was a great funeral of course a 
 thronged church and hundreds unable to enter. 
 The Bishop preached the sermon, which did 
 due honor to the great merits of the deceased
 
 124 JUSTICE. 
 
 and the special graces with which he had been 
 endowed both by nature and by Providence. 
 His learning, his humility, his gentle, affec 
 tionate and retiring nature, were done full jus? 
 tice to. Those who knew Dr. McEachirn 
 well, shed tears at the rehearsal they recog 
 nized the side of his character that had been 
 presented. Its more human aspect was for 
 gotten then. 
 
 The week of excitement having passed by, 
 the next thing was the election of a successor. 
 Everybody said, " Mr. Bowen." Some said, 
 " Bowen, of course." Many more said, " It 
 might be Mr. Bowen if ." More than all 
 were those who said, " Mr. Bowen, I hope, 
 but I fear not. He is in such an unfortunate 
 , position ! " 
 
 Mr. Bowen himself was not sanguine. 
 There had been no anticipation to temper his 
 unaffected regret at the loss of such a friend as 
 he had had in the late rector. To the more 
 hopeful Fletcher he expressed himself thus : 
 " Dr. McEachirn died five years too soon for 
 me, Fletcher. I do not expect under the cir 
 cumstances to win the election."
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 125 
 
 Fletcher, whose zeal for Bowen grew warm 
 as the terrible vision of Malthaus at the head 
 of the parish grew imminent as the alternative, 
 canvassed with assiduity for his friend, and 
 with increasing earnestness as the hour ap 
 proached. 
 
 It wanted one week of the election. The 
 vestry had appointed the next Monday even 
 ing for their final conclave. Mr. Bowen was 
 in the church examining into the merits of 
 new patterns in candlesticks, which were to ap 
 pear for the first time in silver and gold among 
 the Easter adornments. Fletcher came in un 
 usually excited and in frantic haste. He took 
 Mr. Bowen off from a discussion with the 
 senior warden. 
 
 " Bowen, I have news for you. You are a 
 free man again." 
 
 " Good heavens. Is Zoe* dead ? " 
 
 " No not yet. They say she is dying, but 
 that is doubtful. But aside from that you are 
 liberated. She has another child born within 
 the week. Mrs. Fletcher had it from Susan 
 Rogers."
 
 126 JUSTICE. 
 
 Bowen stood as though a thunderbolt had 
 fallen at his feet. 
 
 " See how the wicked destroy themselves," 
 said Fletcher enthusiastically. " Here this 
 woman has been followed and watched and 
 reported upon for months all to no purpose. 
 Providence comes in to detect guilt when all 
 other means fail." 
 
 Bowen thought no more about the candle 
 sticks, but left the vestry to settle the patterns 
 among themselves. 
 
 It was well toward sunset. He hurried to 
 his study, opened his desk and took out a little 
 night-key locked up for many months then 
 he hurried off to Mrs. Johnson's. That ven 
 erable female was just lighting up the hall. 
 
 " How is Zoe ? " he asked. 
 
 " Zoe will suffer very little more in this 
 world," replied Mrs. Johnson. "Dr. Kass 
 brought two physicians here to-day and none 
 of them give us any hope. Dr. Kass wanted 
 thee to feel satisfied with his efforts. It is the 
 same room. She will be glad to see thce." 
 
 The interview between the dying woman 
 and her husband lasted over two hours. It
 
 JUSTICE. 127 
 
 was the same Zoe, altered only as the disease 
 and mental suffering of a year had done their 
 work. But the eye and smile betokened an 
 unaltered soul. 
 
 When he left he said to Mrs. Johnson that 
 he would return in the morning. 
 
 There were early prayers to be read. This 
 was his duty, as Fosbrook was ill and Fletcher 
 away. When Bowen returned to the house 
 he found Mary crying in the hall. She 
 handed him a card, on which was written : 
 " Mrs. Bowen died at six this morning. With 
 sympathy yours, Julian Kass." 
 
 With a face as white as ashes Bowen read 
 this note, then locked himself into the study. 
 Meantime the news was flying over the parish. 
 Fletcher drove in from the country at noon. 
 He had expected it. 
 
 " It has happened just at the right time for 
 Bowen ? " said he. " Now if that woman 
 could be buried to-day, and he would engage 
 himself to-morrow to Belle McEachirn, and an 
 nounce it on Sunday, he would go into the 
 rector's shoes on Monday as surely as the sun 
 rises."
 
 128 JUSTICE. 
 
 When Fletcher called to see Bowen he found 
 that gentleman with Dr. Kass, who was ar 
 ranging for the burial. He felt delicate about 
 saying much before a third parfy. 
 
 " Shall you go to this funeral ? " he asked 
 of Bowen. 
 
 " It is to be from this house." 
 
 
 
 "That's impolitic, Bowen. Better let it 
 come off quietly at the Quaker's, and let me or 
 somebody go down in gown and bands and 
 read the service." 
 
 "That would not be in accordance with 
 Mrs. Bowen's wishes," pronounced Dr. Kass. 
 "She gave me directions before seeing her 
 husband." 
 
 Fletcher had interrupted a conversation be 
 tween Bowen and the physician. " Dr. Kass 
 could only add a few words at the front door, 
 to which Bowen accompanied him. 
 
 " I advise you strongly against it. You 
 would only ruin yourself forever and do the 
 dead no earthly good." 
 
 The next news was that Zoe's youngest born 
 was to be adopted by Mr. Bowen and educated 
 with the. other child. At first Fletcher was
 
 JUSTICE. 129 
 
 daunted by what he feared was an evil meas 
 ure, but he soon had his cue from the promi 
 nent ladies of the congregation. 
 
 "It's magnanimous! that's the word ex 
 actly. Bowen's treatment of that poor wretch 
 has been magnanimous all the way through, 
 only unfortunately thrown away on such a sub 
 ject." 
 
 And so well did Mr. Fletcher convey this 
 opinion about the congregation, that the word 
 "magnanimous" went home in a hundred 
 mouths after evening service. 
 
 The notes of the last chant had died away, 
 and the choir, practising for the Easter ser 
 vices, had gone from the organ loft. As the 
 last member of that quartette was quitting the 
 church he preceived one of the clergy enter 
 through the vestry room. It was Mr. Bowen. 
 He crossed through the eastern aisle, and 
 stood before the alter. The witness saw him 
 kneel, and quietly retired. 
 
 The man on his knees gazed long at the 
 altar, at the dim outline of the Easter candles 
 by the Bishop's chair, at the painting of the 
 triple crucifixion overhanging all and lit by the
 
 130 JUSTICE. 
 
 rays of the moon. Somehow this atmosphere 
 he had breathed so many years in contentment 
 had grown stifling, and a flame that once 
 glowed here with celestial brightness, had 
 turned to ashes. In that hour the veil fell 
 from his eyes ! He looked beyond the altar 
 to a God so little known before the God of 
 Truth and Justice, by Christ revealed by 
 Paul declared, and in the contemplation, high 
 as the stars and wide as the universe, he felt 
 like one who, near the mouth of a narrow river, 
 looks out on the high seas. One of those 
 struggles which end only with the soul's life or 
 death was going on within him, and it was in 
 vain to linger in this temple of the world for 
 aid. 
 
 He rose with a sigh and went back to his 
 study and his own reflections. Here he paced 
 the floor hour after hour, and the angel strug 
 gled with the devil till the night was gone. 
 
 He had said to Zoe in her last hours : 
 
 " Live for my sake and the children's ! 
 Hereafter I will live for you." 
 
 And she had answered: " Hereafter you can 
 live for something better than for me justice."
 
 JUSTICE. 131 
 
 And these words rang continually on the 
 divine side of his human soul. 
 
 And on the other side spoke the voice of 
 the world strongly against it. " You would 
 only ruin yourself forever and do the dead no 
 earthly good." 
 
 The next morning the congregation had for 
 a topic of discussion the following notice in 
 the death column of a daily paper : 
 
 " March 2ist., Zoe L. Bovven." 
 
 "No funeral services. Interment from the 
 residence of Rev. Edwin C. Bowen, to-day at 
 one o'clock." 
 
 Not one exclaimed " Heathenism." Nearly 
 everybody considered it a very proper thing. 
 The ladies thought it very evident that Mrs. 
 Bowen had died as she had lived, impenitent 
 and contumacious. Mr. Bowen had treated 
 her too nobly to allow any one to suppose he 
 would not have added Christian burial to the 
 list of his mercies, had rubrical law permitted 
 him to do so without absolute sacrilege. 
 
 That morning, after service, Messrs. Fos- 
 brook and Fletcher, with several of the vestry, 
 met in Mr. Bowen's parlor. That gentleman
 
 132 JUSTICE. 
 
 evidently had not slept. They all proceeded 
 to Mrs. Johnson's in a body. Fletcher hold 
 ing Bowen's arm, dilated all the way on his 
 entire satisfaction with the different denoue 
 ments. 
 
 " Get this business over and the next thing 
 is your election. Malthaus won't bother us 
 on the vestry, for he has had a quarrel with his 
 uncle here who has just told me he shall vote 
 for you. Malthaus is sick in bed about it. 
 You are as good as elected at this moment. 
 Everybody cries up your mercy to this woman. 
 They say she ought to feel it in her grave." 
 
 Bowen did not reply. They reached the 
 door of Mrs. Johnson's house, and he led the 
 way in. -The parlors were dark as the shut 
 ters were closed. Mrs. Johnson sat near the 
 door with an open Bible. 
 
 The close room was fragrant with flowers. 
 They were piled over the coffin where Zoe's 
 white features were visible in the repose of 
 death. The statue, with its thorny coronet 
 and conspicuous label, stood out in bold relief 
 from the curtains. In the little cradle where 
 Eddy had so often lain was a sleeping infant,
 
 JUSTICE. 133 
 
 its little hands closed each side of its uncon 
 scious face. 
 
 " The flowers came as thee said," re 
 marked Mrs. Johnson. " I thought we would 
 put some of the sweetest of those white roses 
 in the coffin." 
 
 "No," said Bowen, "there is nothing 
 sweeter than her face." 
 
 The child stirred and gave an uneasy little 
 moan. Bowen took up the infant in his arms, 
 solemnly, as he had taken many another at the 
 baptismal font. The rectorship, and twelve 
 thousand a year, and the honors of the great 
 church at large, flitted before the man's eyes, 
 only to perish into nothingness before the face 
 of that absolute truth whose disciple he that 
 day became. As he uttered the next words 
 which sealed his sentence, he felt that he was 
 exchanging something very small for some 
 thing very great. 
 
 " I CANNOT ALLO*W YOU TO BELIEVE THAT 
 THE WOMAN BEFORE YOU IS OTHER THAN 
 
 INNOCENT. GENTLEMEN, THIS CHILD is 
 
 MINE."
 
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